


Superheroes

by TruebornAlpha



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Awkward Flirting, Comic book style violence, F/F, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mind Control, Minor Malira, Sciles, Sex, Smut, Superheroes, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:49:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7294660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruebornAlpha/pseuds/TruebornAlpha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott McCall is best known to the world as Rocket Boy, the leader of the superheroes known as the Pack. With his team, they protect Beacon Hills and the world from supervillains bent on taking over. But a traveler from the future calling himself "The Stiles" has showed up on their doorstep claiming to be an ally. What are his true motives and will be be able to save the future if he falls in love?</p><p>A Sciles superhero story inspired by Young Justice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2016 Big Bang!

A powerful explosion sent both rebels to their knees, the bunker rocking from the blast. Sharp chips of stone and concrete rained down on Stiles’s head as he wobbled back up to his feet. The enemy was closing in, tearing through the upper levels of their stronghold. Their troops promised to buy them time, but the walls were coming down around them.

“Kira? Kira, are you okay?!”

The older woman nodded, wiping a smear of blood from her cheek. She only looked like she was in her thirties, but Stiles knew that she’d been leading the rebel forces against the Autarch for decades longer than that. Whatever power was in her blood helped her heal, but even the undefeated Tempest looked exhausted. Dark smudges circled her eyes, wisps of her black hair pulling free of her ponytail and streaked with ash. They hadn’t slept in weeks, dodging the Autarch’s increased attacks. They’d lost three outposts and the survivors had been rounded up for the Autarch’s “rehabilitation” camps. Their enemy never wasted anyone he could put to good use. He called it a mercy, rewriting their minds into a blind, blissful slate as an alternative to death.

Stiles would have rather died than let them take him, and no one could touch Kira. She had been the heart of their resistance since the beginning. If she was captured, they would all fail.

“I’m fine.” She clasped the teen on his shoulder and turned to face the machine, so carefully hidden in the most secure location the rebels once had. She punched in a set of codes as another explosion echoed through the base. “I’ve almost got it.”

“Kira, the Autarch’s troops are already inside the base. We have to go,  _now_.” He begged, trying to pull her away.

“There’s nowhere left to run, Stiles. We have to complete the jump, it’s the only way to stop this.”

“Then you should be the one to go! If you stay here, they’ll kill you and I can’t…please, we can’t lose you.”

Kira put her hands on the young boy’s shoulders and smiled, still so sweet and hopeful in the midst of blood and ruin. It always took Stiles’s breath away. “You know I can’t be the one to do it and you know why. You’ve been training for this. When you succeed, none of this will ever take place, so what happens to me will never happen.”

Tears gathered in Stiles’s eyes as he clung to his mentor, the only one in his life who had ever offered him anything but pain. “It matters to me.”

“Shhh.” She kissed his forehead and gently pushed him towards the machine. “We believe in you. You can do this, Stiles.”

The door burst open sending shrapnel spraying across the room. Stiles didn’t have a moment to react before Kira shoved him into the jumper and shoved the door shut. “NO! I’m not leaving you, I won’t let you die!” He slammed his hands against the view panel as she gave him that same sweet, sad smile.

Lightning arced from her hands, cutting through the Autarch’s troops as the world began to dissolve around him. The last thing he saw was the Tempest standing against overwhelming odds. A spray of blood splattered across the view panel as she fell. Stiles screamed, voice breaking into bitter sobbing as reality pulled itself apart around him.

Kira was right, she always was. If he could carry out his mission, then the Autarch would never rise to power, the world wouldn’t be crushed under his heel, and Kira would still be alive. It was all on him, Stiles couldn’t fail.

_Scott McCall had to die._


	2. Chapter 2

 “WAAAHOO!” Rocket Boy whooped at the top of his lungs, twisting in midair to fire blazing bolts of blue energy at the pursuing robots. He managed to catch one, the metal body exploding in a shower of flames and shrapnel, but the others kept coming, dodging the blasts and firing back. A robot exploded to his left and he banked sharply, almost clipping a skyscraper as he hit the edge of the concussion wave. Training was all well and good, but the best kind of training came on the job!

He charged up another blast, energy streaking back in brilliant blue and taking out another one of the mechanical enemies. Yikes, there were still too many of them! The machines returned fire, rockets spiraling towards him as he barrel rolled and dove. Crap crap crap, he couldn’t shake ‘em! Did they have some kind of heat seeking or homing device? He pulled up before hitting the pavement, winding his way erratically through shrieking pedestrians and honking cars.

Oh, bad. So bad, someone was going to get hurt and at this point, it was probably going to be him.

“Got it!” A voice said in his ear as Rocket Boy’s skin crawled with sudden energy. The air grew thick and heavy. Then bright bolts of lightning arched close enough that the breath was sucked right out of his lungs. Behind him, the missiles exploded in a burst of flame he spiraled down away from the blast.

“Geez, almost got me with that one.”

“Oops? Sorry Rocket Boy!” Tempest said with a laugh echoing in his earpiece, her cape billowing in the wind. Kira couldn’t keep from giggling as Scott streaked by and pulled a face.

“You say that until you end up zapping me out of midair.”

“It would serve you right.” Ms. Monster’s voice cut in, smashing through the remaining robots below them. In her gorilla form, Malia was unstoppable, grabbing her metallic enemies and the shapeshifter tore them apart in a shower of sparks. “You were showing off again. If you get your ass singed off, it’s your own fault.”

Rocket Boy grinned wickedly and aimed a bolt of energy at a robot sneaking up behind his teammate. “We’ve got this, Ms. Monster. Just having a little fun.”

Ms. Monster snorted and picked a steaming bit of shrapnel off her furry shoulder. Then without warning, she charged, right at Rocket Boy. Scott eeped, eyes wide behind his mask, scrambling out of the way just in time to watch Malia barrel right into a pair of gutsy robots in a shower of sparks.

“ _Keep it up, you guys. I’ve almost got a lock on their signal! Doctor Mayhem’s gotta be watching this too, so keep your eyes peeled._ ” An orotund voice echoed through their communicators. Across Beacon Hills, tucked away safely under seven layers of security in the fanciest building in the center of the city, techno-wunderkind and tragic heir to the Hewitt’s considerable family fortune, the Maze Master was tapping away furiously at his monitor. He’d hacked into local traffic cameras and had a front seat view to the battle without any of the risks involved.

He rounded up their little gang. Rocket Boy, Tempest, Ms. Monster, and Maze Master. Together, they were The Pack, and they kept Beacon Hills safe.

“Mas-ze Master, they’re coming out of the sewers. I’ve got a fresh wave, and could - _fizzz-_  really use some help!” Kira crackled on the line.

Ms. Monster roared, slamming the heads of two robots together. It was a good thing they were made of bolts and wires; they had no idea how scared they should have been. Rocket Boy gave her a thumbs up, and yelled, “Finish things here and join us. I’m coming, Tempest!”

“Appreciate it! Oh no.”

Kira barely got the words out before a group of robots exploded in front of her in a blast of blue light. Rocket Boy looked terribly smug as he appeared behind them, hands still glowing blue. Snorting, Kira punched him in the shoulder and made for the open grate. Scott was right behind her, and immediately gagged on the stench.

“It’s a good thing robots don’t have noses.” Rocket Boy groaned. The sooner they could get out of here, the better. Tempest laughed, but the sound was died with the tap tap of metal feet on stone.

“Incoming!”

Then there was just more of the same.

“ _I got it!”_  The Maze Master piped up. “ _Keep doing what you’re doing guys. You’re heading east. There’s another troop heading surface-side, and Ms. Monster’s on her way. Looks like they’re the last thing standing between you and Doctor Mayhem. Sending coordinates now.”_

Numbers and grids tinged in green flickered across Rocket Boy’s visor. Scott let out an excited whoop, blasting ahead and leaving Tempest squawking in his dust. He followed Mason’s trail, and burst through the sewer grate, only to find that he was too late.

In the center of a group of deactivated and dismembered robots, standing tall and proud in skin-tight black and red with goggles to match was a young man Scott had never seen before.

“Rocket Boy?” The stranger said, voice distorted though the prickle of energy that Scott got around all sorts of technology was at a low, the sort he expected while being in the city. “You’re shorter than I expected. You can call me _The Stiles._ ”

The Stiles never noticed when the gnat on his shoulder turned into a pony and squished him flat. Then he was out cold.

Scott didn’t know that a pony could look smug, but Malia managed.

* * *

 

 “Did we have to bring him back with us? I don’t think it’s such a good idea.” Tempest fiddled with the end of her cloak, worrying from the doorway of Mason’s workshop. There were always benefits of having a rich, genius willing to let them use his billion dollar cutting edge building as their base of operations. The downside was Mason’s insatiable curiosity.

“Based on Scott’s initial scan, I needed to know a little bit more.” Mason said, examining their unconscious captive as he snored in his restraints. “You guys, I’ve never seen anything like this before. I don’t think he’s with Doctor Mayhem. At least, he’s not a robot like the rest of them.”

Scott leaned over the examination table and frowned, absently rubbing his arm as his nerves prickled from something that felt like too much static. Stripped down to his painfully tight bodysuit, the boy didn’t seem much like a threat, but bringing him back to their base could put them all at risk if he turned out to be some enemy. Especially when he thought Scott was short!

Mason pulled out a strange device that squealed as he brought it close to “The Stiles’s” body. What kind of name was that anyways? “He’s covered in chronotrons. This is amazing!”

Malia scowled. “Speak English, you’re doing it again.”

“Oh. Uh… He’s not from this time? He’s a time traveler. Doctor Mayhem couldn’t do something like this. Guys, I don’t think  _anyone_  could do something like this. It’s not supposed to be possible.” Mason sounded absolutely delighted.

The rest of them weren’t quite so excited. 

“Time traveler.” Malia repeated, remarkably unimpressed only the way someone who could shift into twenty eight different animals (and counting) at will could be. Mason nodded eagerly.

Scott perched by the examination bed, leaning in closer to look at the boy. “So is he dangerous or is he here to help?”

“Definitely here to help.” Stiles cut in suddenly as everyone yelped in surprise. “Though kinda hard to help while I’m strapped to a table. You guys finished doing whatever it is you’re doing or are we going all the way? I’m going to vote against the whole anal probe thing, I promise I’m not evil.”

“I-”

“Thought so.” The Stiles shot them his wickedest grin yet, and suddenly the table started shaking. It was over almost as soon as it began. He vibrated his molecules through his restraints, moving so fast he could phase through matter and zipped through the room to crack his back. “Whooo! Ms. Monster, Malia Tate, Ms. Malia, I knew you packed a punch ouch that’s gonna take so long to fix like three whole minutes.”

“Get him!” Scott shouted, and they couldn’t afford to think about all of Mason’s expensive equipment. The Stiles sucked in his teeth.

“No nope no getting I don’t like that one gotta run!”

In a blur, he sped across the room, around Malia twice, and pushed Kira forward, when she threw a punch at where he was a millisecond ago. “Too slow! Yikes Kir-kir-kira Tempest Kira. Can I say it is a real honor you are so cool! No more hitting I don’t think I can take it. OH! The Maze Mason Master!”

“I got the place on lock down,” Mason said, only to have his energy sensor knocked out of his hands. The Stiles cackled when he lunged for it, plucking his own goggles off Mason’s metal counter and dropping them on his head. 

“Sorry dude I don’t need you sticking your things in my things at least not without dinner no offense okay? Yipe!” 

The Stiles was full of wit and sarcasm, but all of it was knocked out of him when Scott flew at him from behind, sending them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs. The speedster landed hard, staring up at Scott with eyes so wide his irises were barely ringed with white, and Scott felt like someone punched him in the gut. Then The Stiles broke out in a brilliantly distracting grin. “Rocket Boy! Scott! Scotty? I’m going with Scotty, get your bony ass off of me! Jeez, does everyone in the past sit on people?”

Scott stared helplessly at his captive who suddenly didn’t seem in any hurry to try and escape again before glancing up at his equally stunned team. He kept “The Stiles” pinned to the ground and swallowed hard. No one knew their secret identities. That was the whole part of  _secret_. Only Mason had a public identity as a superhero, but that was because it was sort of difficult to hide the multi-million dollar building they used as a base of operations. The rest of them had family that couldn’t hide behind high tech security and would be targets the second any of their enemies could piece together a name with the teen behind each mask.

“Who are you?” He asked gruffly, putting on his best serious expression. “How do you know who we are?”

“Geez!” The Stiles whined, smacking Scott’s hands away from his face.  “I already told you guys. Or maybe I didn’t? I probably should have.” He tried to strike the most heroic pose he could while still on the floor. “I’m from the future! Where I come from, you guys are legends. Everyone knows who you are, duh. Still thought you’d be taller though, Rocket Boy. Maybe it’s that heroic aura that adds a few inches?”

Scott sat back, not sure if he was supposed to be amused or offended. Kira looked wary and Malia downright hostile, but Mason was practically bouncing in excitement.

“I’m not short.”

“Sure you’re not, Scotty.” The time traveler said without an ounce of sincerity. “Can you stop crunching my spleen now or are you really planning on doing some probing down there?”

“Oh, I… yeah. I guess? I mean I wasn’t!” Scott stood up and brushed himself up as The Stiles bounded up to his feet, practically vibrating.

“Wow, you have no idea what an honor it is to meet you guys for real. I’ve read all about you and all the things that you’ve done. Will do. You know, whatever. I can’t wait to get started.”

“What do you mean, get started?” Scott narrowed his eyes as the speedster zipped across the room to stare intently into Malia’s face (neatly dodging a punch) before zooming back to judgmentally examine Mason’s wall of high tech machines. “We don’t even know who you are or what you want. For all we know, you’re some time traveling villain.”

“Villain?!” The Stiles scoffed, completely indignant. Just when they thought this couldn’t get any weirder, the Stiles pulled another trick out of his hat. “No way, dude. I’m here to join the team!”

Malia decided she had enough.

“I’m not taking any chances. I’m going to kill him.”

“Malia no!” Tempest yelled, grabbing Ms. Monster around the waist just as the other hero was about to lunge. Tempest was a hundred pounds soaking wet, but when she decided you were going to stay, you  _stayed._ Though he didn’t look it, The Stiles had enough good sense to realize he’d messed up. Laughing nervously, hands raised in mock surrender he backed away carefully. Scott stopped him before he could get too far.

“The Stiles, huh?” He asked and poked the speedster in the chest. “Tell us who you are, and what you’re really doing here. Quit dodging questions.”

The Stiles gasped, swiping at Rocket Boy’s offending finger. “I told you! I’m here to join the team!”

Scott jabbed him in the chest extra hard, and Stiles found it in him to look even more indignant. Scott suspected that was his real super power.

“Okay, okay,  _fine_. I’m Grzegorz Stilinski. That’s where I got  _The Stiles,_  but you should call me The Stiles so I have a real retro super-secret identity like all of you guys.” He looked so proud of himself, too. “And I’m not going to join-join the team, just for a little while so I get a real feel of what it’s like at ground zero for my book report. Why research history when you can  _live_ it am I right? Then I’ll be gone and it’ll be like I was never here. You gotta preserve the time stream and all that. Shit, I probably said too much. Forget everything I said! If I start a wormhole I’m going to be so cracked.”

Stiles spoke in one long breath, but all at once his expression crumbled unhappily. “Or that was the plan, but my Jumper crashed hard, and I can’t really move it, but if anyone can fix it, the Maze Master can because you’re awesome, dude.”

“I am pretty awesome.” Mason admitted proudly, not a wink of confusion on his face. He looked like all his Christmases had come early.

Scott really wanted to sit down.

He didn’t know what was worse, the nickname or the reason for time traveling. Scott rubbed the bridge of his nose and swallowed a deep sigh. “You came back in time for a book report? You expect us to believe that people in the future just come back all the time for homework? How stupid do you think we are?”

“I’m telling the truth!” Stiles forced himself to still, the less twitchy he was, the more sincere he could seem. “I know it seems weird to you guys, but it’s totally normal where I come from. I wasn’t _really_ supposed to get so close. There’s rules and everything, but my Jumper is busted and you guys. I mean, I thought if anyone could help… I didn’t have another option, okay? You’re my best chance at getting home and this whole thing turned into a mess. You’re heroes. I knew that if I let you capture me, we’d have the chance to talk and you’d be able to help me.”

Now Scott was sure he could feel a headache coming on, but this Stiles guy hit the right tone. If he was in trouble, as unlikely as it was, they’d have to do something to help him. Scott wasn’t sure they could trust weird people from the future, but they couldn’t just throw him out on the street, especially if he knew their secret identities. “Fine. Mason, do you think you could take a look at the ‘jumper’ thing and see if you could put it back together?”

Mason whooped in excitement. “Examine future time travel technology? Hell yeah I can! This is going to be intense.”

“Until we figure out what’s going on and Mason can fix your ship thing, then you can stay.” Scott said with a quick glance at his teammates who looked anxious but were willing to follow his lead. “But you don’t get to wander around the base alone and you definitely don’t get to touch anything. Just stay out of trouble, okay?”

“Dude!” Stiles zipped up next to Scott so fast that it looked like he appeared from thin air. “You won’t regret this, I promise. This is going to be so frigging awesome!”

Scott shoved him away and felt a hint of smug satisfaction at the look of shock on the speedster’s face, until he remembered that Stiles was supposedly some kind of bizarre civilian fanboy. It was nice to know he could catch him though, even a little.

“Wait, does everyone in the future have super powers?”

Stiles opened his mouth, and a beat later, clamped it shut before squinting suspiciously at Scott. “Wormhole, remember?”

Rocket Boy sighed all the way down to his toes, just as Mason cackled behind him gleefully. Honestly, at this point, if this all turned out to be a trap and they walked straight into it, they deserved what they got.

“Come on, The Stiles, show me where your Jumper is. What can you tell me about it?” Mason asked, waving the speedster towards the doorway.

“Uh. If you book your trip 18 months in advance, you get 40% off your next jump?”

Kira only let Malia go when they were out of sight, and the girls crowded close, sending pointed looks at the pair’s retreating backs.

“I should go after them.” Malia grumbled. “I don’t like him.”

Kira wasn’t the least bit surprised, but she rubbed the spot she’d held on the shapeshifter’s arm, apologizing without words before asking, “Do you really trust him, Scott?”

Rocker Boy shook his head. “No, but it’s a lead we got to check out. He did help us with Doctor Mayhem’s latest attack. I’ll stay with him back here and keep him out of trouble. You guys go with Mason and watch his back. All of this is fishy. If something’s messed up with his jump-thing, someone might get hurt. It doesn’t matter how fast future boy can run, if he tries anything, we’ll stop him. Deal?”

His teammates didn’t look entirely convinced, but they finally nodded.

“Deal.”


	3. Chapter 3

“You know, when people mentioned improving society for the better, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.” Stiles drawled.

Scott was only half-listening, but that didn’t seem to bother the time traveler. It did, however, bother Scott.

“I mean yeah, it’s not all about glory and praise. I get that. I’m not a complete nut, and heroes are all about giving back to the community, but really-”

For one, terrifying moment, everything trembled, and Scott was sure that this rescue mission was going to end with him needing assistance.

“Can I get another quote from you on that? You know for the report.”

“For the love of God, Stiles! Hold the damn ladder!” Scott yelled, just as Mrs. Fussy Paws hissed in indignation and scampered up to a higher branch. Scott thunked his head on the tree trunk.

“Hey, dude, don’t worry about it. You’re doing good. Everything looks great from down here!” The speedster yelled. There was a pause, then. “I’m talking about your butt.”

Scott never wanted to come back down.

To say Scott was rusty with flirting didn’t cover it. Rusty implied he’d been good at it once and Scott knew he’d never come close to having any kind of legitimate skills. He’d never had the opportunity to get the experience, though he wasn’t sure Stiles was much better for all his enthusiasm on the topic. Every time the speedster commented on the way the high tech spandex  hugged his ass, Scott could feel heat creep up into his ears as his mouth decided to stop working entirely, stumbling over any kind of normal response.

What even was a normal response to that? Stiles was fast in every sense of the word. He made himself at home in Scott’s life, crowding into his space and always demanding more. He was quick to smile, quick to insult, and quick to help though his attention span waned just as quickly and the ladder wobbled again.

“Seriously, if you let me fall, I’m going to make sure I crush you to death.” Scott warned, but the speedster just grinned.

“So what you’re saying is that you want me to get all up close and personal with your butt? I think there’s worse things out there.”

“What?! No! Will you stop?” Scott turned back to the angry cat, trying to block out the way Stiles’s laughter always made him want to join in.

Mrs. Fussy Paws yowled sympathetically, before she tried to dig her sharp little talons into his arm for all his hard work. Despite all that, she didn’t look the slightest bit bothered as she was carried off of her perch. Scott, however, was prepared to be very bothered, because Stiles started hooting and hollering the moment he was halfway down. Mrs. Fussy Paws’s owner was equally impressed, and dammit, Scott knew he was blushing.

The little girl clapped her hands and stomped her feet, egged on no doubt by the teenager who was a thousand times worse than she was, and she squealed her cat’s name before Scott could pour the ornery feline into her arms. “Thank you!”

Stiles elbowed her shamelessly. Scott was beginning to think he hadn’t a bone of shame in his entire body. “Scotty’s a real hero, isn’t he?”

“Oh shut up.” Scott mumbled, more pleased than he could admit. It wasn’t often that he could help someone with his name attached to it and if he was honest, there was a lot he’d do to see Stiles smile at him like this. “I’m just glad to help.”

The little girl gave Scott a quick hug, smushing the yowling cat between them before running off back towards home. Scott watched her go as Stiles casually slung his arm around the other boy and pulled him close. “You’re a real hero, dude. This is why we’re best friends.”

Scott couldn’t have been happier.

It was strange how quickly Stiles made himself a friend. Scott sometimes wondered if he came back in time with a manual in his pocket that listed out all Scott’s favorite things or if they really were so much the same. He’d never had a best friend before, but Stiles slid into the empty space like he’d always belonged there. They struggled to find that balance on the battlefield. Stiles was always more interested in showing off than following directions, but they won and in the end, that was what mattered most.

The battles had kept coming. Doctor Mayhem’s robots attacked the city every few weeks, blasting craters in the streets and reducing entire buildings to rubble, but he wasn’t the only one. The Candy Crusher tried to blanket the city in smothering cotton candy, the Kite Killer used her papery wings to rain down terror on Beacon Hills, and the Gill Gang lurked in the sewers, using the pipes to break into the banks. The Pack was there every time, beating back the villains and hauling them off to jail triumphantly. All except for Doctor Mayhem who remained just out of reach.

Afterwards, sore and bruised and long after the girls had headed to bed, they’d curl together on the couch and Scott would show him the treasures of ancient trash television and all of his favorite movies that Stiles had never heard of. It became a game to find the things that would fascinate his friend, make his light brown eyes widen in wonder over something Scott thought was so simple. Scott would do a lot to bring out that mischievous grin. 

Mason was beyond excited to pick Stiles’s brain about the future, though Stiles was a master of evasion. Too much information could change things and he warned about the dangers of messing with the timeline. Scott thought that Stiles’s entire existence messed with everything, but what did he know about time travel? The speedster even managed to win over Malia and Kira, sparring with the shapeshifter as she handed him his ass each time, and trading puns with Kira until everyone in the room groaned.

“And that’s where they sell the best milkshakes in town. My favorite’s strawberry.” Scott finished, grinning from ear to ear as the two boys strolled through the streets. He needed to eat far less than he used to, once he got his powers, but Scott always had time for Ma’s Diner.

When Beacon Hills wasn’t being rampaged by dastardly super villains, it was a pretty typical Californian city. Like any, it had its hidden secrets, and after almost two years, Scott thought he knew enough of them to be impressive. It was bigger than his hometown, by a lot. There wasn’t much to remind him of the home he left behind, but that wasn’t entirely a bad thing. He’d built a life for himself, with people who he could trust. It was the first time he’d ever felt like he belonged. Having friends could make any place feel like home.

When Stiles yawned, he kind of wanted to shake him.

“That’s cool, dude, but I could have run here in like - a second.” A wicked grin broke out across the speedster’s face, but Scott snagged him by the back of his collar before he could prove it. They’d already learned the hard way that civilian clothing was not built for super speed. Friction was a wonderful thing. Stiles wilted.

“Just get in,” Scott sighed, shooing the other boy into Ma’s Diner.  The others had decided not to come with them, Mason had switched his attention to fine tuning his instruments and fix the glitch in their systems that detected stray energy signatures while the girls rolled their eyes and kept their standing date night. It was Malia’s turn to pick a restaurant and she wasn’t wasting her choice on a diner no matter how much Scott recommended it. Stiles would change his tune once he saw his milkshake had a little umbrella in it. Scott ordered two before they took their seat, and as many onion rings as they could put on a plate with their burgers.

Yet the speedster had fallen uncharacteristically quiet. When he shuddered, he earned himself an immediate worried look from Scott.

“You okay, man?”

“Of course, just taking in the retro atmosphere.” The lazy grin was back and he twirled his umbrella around his shake appreciatively. “Don’t tell me you spend all your off time here. You’d never be able to get that butt into that spandex.”

Scott snorted and almost choked on his milkshake. “Dude,  _no_. This place just sort of reminds me of home. And it’s not spandex, it’s one of Mason’s super polymer-high tech thingys.”

“Suuuure, Scotty. And it doesn’t leave much to the imagination.”

“It’s just a uniform, you’re not supposed to be looking at my butt!” Scott’s cheeks burned and he wished he could sink into the seat. The crush had started almost immediately, Malia picking up on it right away and giving him hell. He thought he did a pretty good job of hiding things, but Stiles always had a knack for throwing him for a loop.

Stiles smirked and toasted the other boy with his drink. “I’m sure that’s something no supervillain has ever done.”

Scott through a wadded up napkin at his forehead, and Stiles gasped in mock horror. Suddenly, his milkshake had two umbrellas in it. Then two straws. He cackled maniacally as Scott scrambled to defend his drink. “You snooze you lose, bro. If you don’t lock down what’s yours, it’s mine. It’s rocket fuel, and I need a lotta-keep going at this speed. Ow!”

Stiles scowled, hunching low so he could rub at his foot, where Scott had stepped on it.

“Keep it down,” Scott hissed. “You can’t just keep…”

“What’s the big deal? You old fogeys and your secret identities. Is it because you walk around basically naked? I could get that.” Stiles asked, but his tone laced with genuine curiosity.

“Because it’s not about us!” Scott glanced around to make sure no one was listening and shot Stiles a scowl. “If someone found out who I was, then my mom would be a target and I won’t let her get hurt because of me. That’s why I…it’s why I’m here.”  He curled his hands around his drink and pulled it to safety away from Stiles’s grasping fingers. “Don’t you have to worry about people hurting your family to get to you?”

The speedster gave an easy grin. “Nah, it’s just me. Nothing wrong with getting all the glory for stuff, right?”

Stiles wasn’t prepared for the concern that twisted the other boy’s face. It was too genuine, like Scott was grieving people he’d never met and probably hadn’t even been born yet. “I’m so sorry, Stiles. I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“It’s okay.” Stiles covered up his awkwardness by focusing on his milkshake. Rocket boy had a mother, he didn’t know why that surprised him. Everyone had one, technically, he just hadn’t thought about it. The only thing that mattered was the mission and Kira’s face as she sent him back in the past. He had to kill Scott McCall to save everyone, but the reality was just a boy trying to shove as many onion rings in his mouth as possible and grinning with overstuffed cheeks.

Oh god… he was going to have to kill a  _nerd_.

_“And on to the six o’clock news.”_

Scott slurped messily, trying to lick a glob of ketchup off the corner of his mouth when Mayor Natalie Martin appeared across the diner on the old box set that had entertained Ma’s customers for longer than he’d been alive. Scott didn’t think he’d ever seen her look so solemn.

“Days ago, Beacon Hills was once again attacked by androids created by the villain known only as  _Doctor Mayhem_.” Stiles leaned across the table to jab Scott anxiously in the arm. And to steal one of his onion rings. He was only a little disappointed that Scott didn’t notice. “Thanks to the tireless efforts of The Pack, these monsters were beaten back, though Doctor Mayhem remains at large. There are several people still missing in the aftermath. While rescue efforts are underway, I would like to urge the citizens of Beacon Hills to remain alert and stay indoors until the threat has passed…” She swallowed, looking down at her notes as if she had trouble reading the words. The mayor’s calm facade cracked. “My daughter, Lydia, is among them. She was last seen at Beacon Hills High School, wearing a red jacket and grey fleece skirt.”

Mayor Martin inhaled deeply. “An updated list of missing persons are available on the BHPD website, as seen on screen. These people need us, and any information you may have could help bring them home. Please, help us bring our children home.”

When Scott finally took his eyes off the screen, Stiles was slurping up the last of  _his_  milkshake. The speedster didn’t even look embarrassed. “What? Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to be this awesome, dude? I’m still hungry.”

“I think we should be doing more about that.” Scott murmured.

Stiles just slurped harder. “Scott, it’s been like _days,_ dude. They’re probably already, you know. Trust me, at this point, you don’t want to find them.”

He made a choking sound and jerked his head to the right, hanging by an invisible noose. Scott was taken aback by the time traveler’s nonchalance, and it must have shown on his face. Stiles scowled.

“Come on, we’ve already been helping out where we could.” The speedster whined, clutching at the menu like he was going to smack Scott across the face with it. “Can’t we at least wait until I have a cheeseburger? Or like six?”

Scott just shot the other boy a disapproving look. “Come on, Stiles.”

“Fine.” Stiles shoved as many of Scott’s uneaten onion rings into his mouth as he could fit and slid out of the booth.

They stepped out of the diner as Scott slouched in his jacket. Without the spandex on, he seemed to like being invisible and blending in. He almost didn’t hear Stiles at first, focused as he was.

“You’re thinking about that missing girl, aren’t you? You think we can help her?”

“I think we can still try. That’s what we do, right? We’ve been chasing Doctor Mayhem for months now and even if we beat back his people, he always manages to slip away before we can catch him, and people get hurt because of it. We need to get Mason in on this. If he can track Doctor Mayhem, maybe he can track those people.”

Stiles smiled, and Scott couldn't help but think there was something terribly sharp about it. It wasn’t nice at all. "What?" He asked, suddenly uncertain.

"I'm just thinking about the rescue teams back home."

Scott wasn’t sure what to do with that, but it left his stomach rolling, until Stiles got to his feet, tossing his napkin on the table. “Come on, Scotty. If you’re wrong, you totally owe me a burger.”

Then the speedster was smiling again, big and bright, but Scott couldn’t quite forget how different it could be.

* * *

 

Mason and Malia were already waiting for them at headquarters as they gathered around the big screen that Mason installed right above their conference table. Kira came in just as they were sitting down, and Stiles had to hold his breath when she approached, squeezing Scott’s shoulder once before dropping into the seat beside Malia. It hurt to look at her. Stiles had never seen her this carefree, or so  _young_. When she caught him staring, he dropped his pen.

The Beacon Hills Police Department website looked down at them from the big screen.

“This is awful. This is completely terrible, Scott. If I hacked into their system and upgraded their website do you think anyone noticed?” Mason bemoaned, struck not only by how little information was available on missing persons, but also by how frequently Papyrus was used for headers.

“Later,” Scott promised. “First, we’ve got to deal with this. We’re looking at a list of people who’re still missing. Most of them were last seen away from downtown, away from where the attacks were. And nearly none of them fit the profile of someone who’d run away. Like the Mayor’s daughter, I know her from school, she’s all set to start college early next semester.”

“What are you saying?” Kira asked, even if she already suspected she knew.

Scott shrugged slowly. “Maybe Doctor Mayhem has more to do with this than we thought.”

“Wait, wait, slow down,” Stiles interrupted, only to burst out laughing. “Did you hear that? Slow down? I crack me up, but anyway, who’s this Mayhem guy anyways? I mean, I get that we keep blowing up his robots all the time, but what’s his deal? Is he a real doctor?”

“No.” Malia was already exasperated by the speedster’s questions, especially with how quickly he tried to integrate himself into their group. Their little family had been through a lot and outsiders could threaten the people she cared about most. She didn’t always trust his intentions, especially with the way he looked at Kira.

Mason was practically vibrating out of his skin with excitement. “Doctor Mayhem’s our nemesis! Well, as close as we have to one.” No one should have been that thrilled to have an arch enemy. “We’ve been fighting his attacks for months. We haven’t been able to put together what he’s doing and he almost never shows up in person. This is the first time I’ve heard of him linked to disappearances though.”

“A real nemesis.” Stiles was almost impressed despite himself. The specific deeds of the team had been lost through the years, all he knew was that they’d saved the world many times over before they disbanded. They just seemed so young, it was strange to think a group of kids could have done so much. He’d heard the team mention the name a few times, but he hadn’t realized how important this villain could be to their history.

“Finding out what he’s doing is important, but we need to focus on getting the victims back, kidnapped or not. They’re our top priority, we’re not going to let any innocents get hurt no matter what.” Scott spoke and everyone in the room went silent as he crossed over to the screen. He traced his fingers gently over the glass. “We’ll start here, the last attack. There was a lot of structural damage after the robots’ attack. We left everything up to the emergency crews, but maybe someone’s trapped under the rubble? If there’re survivors we missed, then we’ll find them or even just a clue to what happened to them. Malia, Kira, you two try to trace Mayor Martin’s daughter’s steps today, we’ll meet up later.”

“No!” Stiles cut in before he could stop himself. “I mean, I can totally go with Tempest. I always wanted to know if I could outrun lightning.”

“No.” Malia dared him to challenge her with one word, eyes narrowed into suspicious slits, and Scott could have sworn they flashed green. Kira’s hand closed on top of hers, wordlessly drawing her teammate back. 

“Maybe next time, Stiles?”

But Scott slid an arm around the speedster’s shoulders and dragged him into his arm pit so quickly, Stiles squawked. “You’re coming with me  _The Stiles._  I wanna see if you can run as well as you run your mouth. And this time, how about you follow my lead?”

His tone was playful, needling, and Stiles wanted to prove him wrong in every single way possible. Stiles could almost convince himself that he was okay with watching Kira go. Logically, he knew that she survived whatever mission she was on, and she would survive, for years to come. He just needed to be sure. Scowling dramatically, the speedster warned, “Only if I get one of those super retro ear-a-ma-jigs and you don’t forget our deal.’

“I’m sure you’ll be happy to remind me.”

”You will so owe me a burger, pipsqueak. Get it? Because you’re tiny.”

“Hey!”

* * *

 

Rocket Boy grunted, as he threw his weight against an unmoving slab of concrete that blocked off a storage room. Like most of the storefronts along South Street, the little department store had been severely damaged by Doctor Mayhem’s robots. When they’d arrived, floating from the sky, there had been less rescue personnel than there had been days ago, but those that lingered had turned to stare. Stiles hadn’t let him forget it.

“See? Now you’ll have even more fanboys after you.” He said, leaning against what was left of the cashier’s counter, as far from helpful as he could be. “You could get this sorta fame all the time, if you just ditched the big secret.”

“Pass,” Rocket Boy wheezed.

“Awww, come on.” Stiles wheedled. “With an ass like that, you’d be the most popular superhero in the country!”

“Will you shut up and give me a hand? I’m getting biological readings from Maze Master’s beeping thingy.”-

“Oh, so his energy scanners are actually working again?” The speedster grinned wickedly and clapped, earning a glare out from beneath Rocket Boy’s mask.

“Can you be serious for one second? There might be someone trapped and hurt down there!” There was a hostility to Scott’s voice, pushed just a step too far. If they’d left too early after the battle and people were still trapped, that was his fault. He’d thought the emergency crews had a handle on everything, their job was to focus on Doctor Mayhem and not the cleanup, but if even one life was lost because of their carelessness, that was on him. He was supposed to be the one who protected people, it was the whole reason he found the others and started this team. It was the only way to turn what had happened to him into something good and learn how to control his unruly powers.

He’d never asked for this, but in the almost two years he’d been trying to make this work, Scott learned that most people didn’t. No one wanted to be targeted by a supervillain or robbed by a criminal or threatened by some kind of monster. No one wanted to be a victim, but it happened. If he had the power to help them, then it was his responsibility to do everything he could. Each life he couldn’t save was a failure, they’d depended on him and he let them down. He wasn’t going to let it happen now.

There was no sign of missing survivors, especially not the Mayor’s daughter. It was like they’d vanished off the face of the earth. They weren’t here in the rubble, maybe there wasn’t any link to Doctor Mayhem? People went missing all the time and Scott had been so willing to jump to conclusions when it came to their nemesis. Maybe he was reading too much into this, too focused on his own experiences to be objective. Rocket Boy‘s fingers digging deep enough into the concrete to crack it as rivulets of blue energy spider-webbed across its surface. That same static electricity pickle ran across his skin. “It’s Doctor Mayhem, I can feel it, but the energy is faded. There hasn’t been anything new here in days.”

Rocket Boy thought he could feel Stiles’s eyes on him, as solid and as heavy as a jacket across his shoulders, fluttering down his arms and wrapped across his elbows. Sensation tugged at the back of his mind, as real as the power that coursed through his fingers, but when he looked up, Stiles wasn’t looking at him. “Tempest, Ms. Monster, do you have anything? I thought I felt… _something_.” .

“ _No, I can’t find anything_.” Malia’s voice said into his ear. “ _We aren’t getting anything at all. It’s like she just disappeared, but I’m getting this… I don’t know yet. I’m still looking. It’s this smell, but it’s not a smell…”_

Ms. Monster’s voice tapered off, like she was too distracted to turn off her microphone.

“Lydia couldn’t have gone this far on her own, unless she was walking all week.” Kira pointed out. “There’s definitely been foul play, but we don’t know if - Malia!”

Tempest’s shout echoed through their ears, then silence. Scott stared in shock. It lasted only for a moment, but it was a moment too long. Stiles took off, running as fast as his feet would carry him, and all Scott could do was chase after. “Wait! Stiles!”

“ _Rocket Boy, I’m getting these energy pulses. Like, like power blast charges, but really unstable. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, way stronger than those ghost readings I was getting before. The girls aren’t answering. Get to the Preserve quick!”_ Mason yelled, as Scott took flight. He pushed his powers as fast as possible, until his limbs were trembling with effort. He didn’t know exactly where his team was, but he didn’t need to.

Tempest’s lightning lit up the sky. It cast sinister shadows across the forest, and painted the monster in their midst in a terrifying light.

No less than eight feet tall, with skin like tar, covered in bulbous blisters, it hobbled with a surprising speed and grace, throwing Ms. Monster in her most powerful form across the forest like she weighed nothing. Tempest’s sparks didn’t even leave a mark, and her eyes glowed an ominous white as she focused her power, the air around them crackling.

And Stiles ran straight for the beast and smacked him in the face. “Come on, ugly! Can’t catch me!” 

The creature howled and took a swipe as Stiles, who dodge the blow with a whoosh. Scott could feel the hum of the beast in his chest, an electric prickle that crawled along his skin and made him feel sick. He recognized the power that shaped this monster and his own body sang with the same chord.

“Tempest!” He called out, fists glowing a blinding blue as he gathered his energy between his hands. “Hit him hard on three. Stiles, Ms. Monster, keep him from running.”

“That’s if you can keep up with me.” Stiles winked at Malia and dashed in, striking the creature and racing away before its mangled clawed hands co-uld catch him. Ms. Monster ignored the annoying speedster, shape melting into a coyote to nip at the creature’s heels hard enough to draw sticky black blood. Her form was too small and quick as she darted around its feet, keeping it off balance.

The beast roared again, face splitting vertically as the ragged edges of its misshapen skull sharpened like fangs. Its long tongue curled, thick and grey as rotting meat as drooling with a venomous green. Blue energy sparked along Rocket Boy’s skin and an answering crackle of lightning flashed as a storm swirled around Tempest.

“NOW!”

Blue and white merged in blinding light and searing heat, catching the creature in its chest with enough power to send them all stumbling back from the blast wave.

Stiles was knocked back, souring through the trees until a solid trunk broke his fall, but even as his body scrambled to repair itself, there was only one thing that mattered to him.

“KIRA!” 

The speedster rushed through the new clearing, the stench of smoke and burnt skin heavy in his nose. He found Tempest, her body bent around an old oak, but when he took her hand, she gasped. Stiles couldn’t let go.

“He’s getting away,” Tempest croaked weakly, shaking her head as she pushed herself to her feet. They were hit by a wave of cool air as monstrous wings spread from the beast’s back and propelled it into the sky. Across from them, Ms. Monster was just picking herself up, swiping blood off her lips, but Rocket Boy was already watching their enemy retreat, eyes wide and stunned, the blue burned from his fingertips.

“What the Hell was that?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

“I have no idea,” Mason groaned.

“Aside from a really Big Ugly?”

There was an extra-large helping of Thai take out in the middle of their conference table, most of it untouched even if Stiles had gotten more than his fair share. A limp towel still hung around Malia’s shoulders. She’d spent several hours in the shape of a planarian worm to speed her healing and now felt better than all of them combined. Scott hadn’t said a word since they’d gotten back. It hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“I’ve been analyzing some of that gunk you brought back, and it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before. Big Ugly’s energy signature’s off the charts, fluctuating like it could be generating its own power source kind of like…” Mason trailed off, sending their leader a quiet look. “Like you, Rocket Boy. I don’t know what it is.”

Scott took a breath and held it, not sure he could meet his teammates’ eyes. They were all hurt, the creature had beaten them back before they could even slow it down. Bruises decorated Kira’s skin and before she’d healed, Malia had been covered in angry red burns from the backlash of energy. His entire body ached from using too much of his power at once until he was scraped raw inside. Blistering burns covered his arms where the creature had blasted his own energy back at him. Scott hadn’t known it was possible, but he wasn’t surprised that the thing had managed to turn his own powers against him. They were too alike.

“It’s me.” He said quietly, the apology already in his voice. “It’s what I could be. What I might have been.”

The room was suddenly full of voices, immediately trying to argue him down, and Scott held up one bandaged hand to silence them.

“That’s why its energy is so much like yours.” Mason broke in, the first to put all the pieces together. “It’s made from the same kind of thing.”

“It’s made by the same person.” Scott let the faintest hint of blue flicker around his fingers. “I’m not like you. I wasn’t born with this, I was-. It wasn’t an accident. I know I let you think it was, I’m sorry. I was…taken.” He swallowed hard, trying to get his stomach to stop roiling. The memories came fast, flashes of pain and begging for it all to end. He’d been poisoned, he could feel something foreign working its way through his body as he screamed until he was swallowed in nothing. “Doctor Mayhem did this to me. I didn’t know who he was at the time and I still don’t know why. I just remember going home after lacrosse practice one day and then just pieces of what he did. I woke up in the hospital a week later, sick enough that they thought I was going to die.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face. The days in the hospital were a blur. What Scott remembered best was the after, his mother begging her boss to let her have a few more days off work; losing his spot on the school team because he always felt so weak; the times he relapsed after he’d been discharged from the hospital. Then there was one, perfect moment that almost made every struggle worth it. The first time he flew. It had been a wonderful accident. Just as unpredictable and unexpected as the accident that drove him from his home.

“When I first met you, I thought you were all like me. That he had done this to all of you too, but you weren’t. I didn’t want to tell you because for the first time it was okay. Even if I was just some kind of experiment, we were-” Scott swallowed thickly. They were better than okay. They were the only people who ever knew him, all of him. He’d always been an outcast, the boy who was too quiet for his own good and too sick to be any fun, but this team was his family. They were everything he had, and they were targeted because of him.

There was a stunned silence that Scott always dreaded. Kira’s powers came from thousands of years of women who passed down their abilities in each generation, and Malia’s mutation had been with her since birth. They weren’t creations, some experiment gone wrong to be a weapon or a monster or whatever it was Doctor Mayhem had wanted from him. All of this was his fault. If he’d stopped Doctor Mayhem before running to Beacon Hills, maybe none of this would have happened. If he’d let Doctor Mayhem take him, maybe no one else would have been kidnapped and changed.  Scott had brought this enemy with him, all those people were his responsibility.

“Then Doctor Mayhem showed up again, and we beat him. We kept beating him, and I thought we could be the ones to stop him. I would have told you if I thought he was doing it to anyone else, the only reason I didn’t was because I thought I was the only one. I thought he was just after  _me_. I-I’m sorry.”

“Intense.” Mason whispered, more to himself than anyone, but the word felt too loud in the room. He cleared his throat, trying to break the tension. “I guess that explains why the readings were similar and why it survived a direct blast.”

Kira leaned forward, worry written in her dark eyes. “Are you telling me that thing we fought is a person?”

“Maybe. If they were, then Doctor Mayhem did something to make them into that monster. I don’t know if we can help them, but we have to try.” Scott started, but Malia broke in angrily.

“How do you expect us to try and save something that took us all down, Scott? If your powers don’t work on it, and Kira can’t even make a dent, then we need to come up with a better plan. We have to stop it!”

Rocket Boy didn’t disagree, there was no telling if the creature was actually human underneath everything or some kind of synthetic creation of Doctor Mayhem’s own. They wouldn’t know until they found the one person at the heart of everything. “We have to find Doctor Mayhem first. Then we can stop all of this.”

“Good.” Ms. Monster snarls, sounding about a second away from bring out her claws. “I’m going to punch his face in. He won’t get to hurt you again.”

Scott had to look up, startled despite himself. He should have known better. Malia’s resolve was absolute. She was the most pragmatic out of all of them, the quickest to make up her mind, and unfailingly loyal. She would stop at nothing to defend her friends.

“I bet if I recalibrate my search parameters to fit your energy signals, we could have a better shot at finding these guys,” Mason piped up, expression lighting up the way it always did when he found something new he could take apart.

“In the meantime, we should all get some rest. It’s been a long day.” Kira never had to raise her voice, but she spoke with an air of finality that no one wanted to counter.

Mason was the first to get up, and he dropped by Scott’s side on his way out, squeezing the other hero’s shoulder before pulling him into a one-armed hug. Scott tensed, but Mason wouldn’t be deterred and all he could do was sigh into the Maze Master’s sternum. Relief was a sneaky thing. It waited until you were most vulnerable to pounce. “We’ll catch that dirtbag, okay?”

Mason was a hugger, and Scott was so grateful for it sometimes.

Stiles watched the rest of the team comfort Scott with a frown, holding back as they all filed out of the room This  _Doctor Mayhem_ , the man who created Rocket Boy had been all but scrubbed from history, no doubt deliberately. Whatever happened here could be the reason the future went spiraling into chaos and bloodshed. Maybe it wasn’t Rocket Boy’s fault after all, maybe Doctor Mayhem was the one who had pulled the strings and unraveled everything.

It was a strange and unwelcome thought. It was easier to kill someone when he could hate him, but Scott was nothing like he’d expected. If there was maybe another way…

“Hey, Tempest? Can I talk to you for a minute?” Stiles plucked at Kira’s sleeve before she left, holding her back. It was still such a shock to see his mentor his own age, so much like his Kira and so different. Brighter, more hopeful, somehow. A version where she didn’t have to harden herself to be a hero. She’d been hurt today and his heart had almost stopped, he couldn’t lose her twice. If killing Scott meant he could save her, then he couldn’t let himself get distracted.

“Yeah, what’s up, _The Stiles_?” She said his name with a laugh. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I uh… I just wanted to check in with you. You got knocked around pretty badly today.”

“Oh!” Kira exclaimed, surprised but pleased for it. She should have remembered. Stiles was still new to all this. He didn’t seem like someone who would be quiet about this accomplishments. He probably hadn’t seen the less glamorous side of battle before. You couldn’t dodge every attack. She squeezed his hand, and Stiles inhaled sharply, his mouth going dry. “Thanks for caring. It could’ve been worse, and I’m mostly healed now. A good night’s sleep should take care of the rest. What about you? Are you okay?”

It was a familiar question, but when Kira said it, it sounded all wrong. No, not wrong, but different. Stiles remembered crying on her lap, even as he staunchly refused to admit he felt any pain, while his mentor bandaged laser blasts that had hit too close. Her smile seemed so much fuller now, but the concern in her eyes was just as warm.

Kira’s eyes widened as Stiles reached out, quicker than lightning, to touch her cheek. She took an uneasy step backwards, and the speedster mimicked her, shame-faced.

“I’m sorry.” Stiles ran his tongue across his bottom lip, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “I didn’t mean to-“

“It’s alright, Stiles.” Kira smiled and put a gentle hand on his arm. It was everything Stiles could do to keep from breaking down with a sob and wrapping his arms around her. This was his Kira and not his Kira, and Stiles never felt so alone. 

“I was just worried about you. For a minute, I thought that, I mean, that thing hit you really hard.”

She laughed and gave his arm a squeeze. “Trust me, I’ve been hit harder. I’ve even hit myself harder!  I can be a little clumsy, though don’t tell anyone I told you that.” Kira flushed to the tips of her ears. “I know we all have each other’s backs, that’s what it means to be part of the team. It was your first real time out and if a few bruises are the worst of it, then I think we did okay.”

Stiles’s expression darkened. “If Rocket Boy had been more careful, then it wouldn’t have happened. If he’d just told everyone about Doctor Mayhem to start with, then we would have been prepared.”

He cut off mid rant as Kira stabbed her finger in the middle of his chest. “Hey. I get being nervous about working with the team, but Scott’s the best of us. If he didn’t tell us about Doctor Mayhem, then there’s a good reason for it. He’s our leader and our friend, we all work together.”

“You really trust him that much?”

“I guess you don’t know much about us in the future then.” Kira said, gathering her things and heading for the door. “If you did, you’d trust him too.”

And Stiles tried his best to conciliate her confident endorsement with the quiet resignation in Tempest’s voice when she first explained the gravity of their mission. Kira gave him one final pat on the shoulder, and Stiles wished he could beg her to stay. It was hard to believe that he would see her in the morning. “Get some rest, okay? We’ll start again fresh in the morning.”

“You- you do a lot.” Stiles blurted out, before she could turn to leave. His chest felt too tight, like his ribs were turning in on themselves. It got worse every time she smiled, but he couldn’t ask her to stop. “In the future, you do a lot of amazing things, and I just want you to know that.”

Kira’s eyes widened. Disbelief and delight crawling across her lips, before she could think about the implications of his statement.

“You all do. You’re my heroes.”

They were. Ms. Monster and her legendary indestructible dragon form; the Maze Master who could have been the most brilliant person to ever exist; the all-seeing Sage with her deafening howl; and the Tempest, the very heart and soul of the resistance, of the world’s last pocket of freedom fighters, the closest person Stiles ever had to family, who would brush his hair back and kiss his brow, and promise that she would always fight for him, up until she couldn’t.

“That’s… Thank you Stiles.” Kira said, voice barely above a whisper. She didn’t know, couldn’t know, how much that meant to him, but Stiles flashed her a blinding grin and punched her in the arm before adding, “And dude, can I sell your autograph when I get back home? I could use the cash! Really great awesome good night!”

Tempest laughed, staring open-mouthed at the spot the speedster had been just seconds ago, before she shook her head.

“I didn’t say anything!”


	5. Chapter 5

Scott sighed and rested his head on the metal table in front of him with a thunk. He’d been stripped down to his boxers and stuck with so many wires and sensors that he felt he was more robot than human. Mason fiddled with a few of the sticky sensor pads on his back, making the hero squirm as they tickled his ribs. Malia sat nearby, silent and seemly absorbed in her book, but Scott was grateful for the way she kept a protective eye on him.

“Okay, Scott. Just use your powers a little and let’s see if my equipment can get a good lock on the signature.” The genius adjusted a few dials, trying to match the exact resonance that sparked energy from Rocket Boy’s cells. He hadn’t been able to identify how the hero produced his powers, but if he could at least find a way to tap in somehow, he might be able to track similar vibrations with his city wide scans.

Without lifting his head from the table, blue light shimmered down Scott’s arm in a wave, clinging close to the skin. There was barely any heat to it even though they all knew he could melt steel if he put enough strength behind his blast. It had taken a long time to learn how to control the wild energy in his veins and Scott still felt like he struggled to pull it back. Electric sparks shot from the sensors with an acrid ozone scent as small wisps of black smoke curled from the wires. Mason gave a yelp and shut the machine down completely.

“Dude, you fried it!” The Maze Master sounded more fascinated than upset at the destruction of his expensive equipment and Scott was immediately apologetic.

“I’m so sorry, I was trying to keep it dialed down. Oh man, I didn’t mean to.”

“No no no, that’s awesome. Whatever energy you’re playing with, it’s immense. I’m going to have to recalibrate everything, replace the wires, maybe use some kind of alloy to handle the power load.” He trailed off as Scott dropped his head back to the table. “Maybe Big Ugly is the reason for the echo I keep picking up, it’s like your power but fainter. It disappears before I can get a track on it, I thought it was a glitch but maybe we could actually use this.”

Mason went quiet, and Scott missed the look he sent Malia. It only made the shapeshifter glare at the page in front of her with more intensity. “You know, it’ll probably take me all night to get everything changed out. We can call it for today.”

Scott pulled himself off the table slowly, scrubbing a hand over his face. He had wanted to be able to start first thing in the morning. It was the only way he could help, and Mason was in the habit of working until the sun greeted him. There were some perks to being an orphaned multibillionaire with a personal jet and no bedtime to speak of. Scott wished he could put all of this behind him. The sooner he could catch Doctor Mayhem, the sooner he could begin to make up for keeping his friends in the dark for so long. It was hard not to think that he’d messed up the first step already.

“I can help put it together if you tell me what to do?”

Malia dropped her book. She’d been bored with it for the last five pages, and she’d only gotten through five. “No, you’re tapping it out. You look like that thing beat you up all over again, and you can’t help anyone if you pass out.”

She yanked off three electrodes at once, and Scott jerked, squirming in place, but Malia’s hand settled on his shoulder. When she spoke, her voice was not gentler, but it was softer. “You’ve been at it for days. You gave it your best shot, and you always say that’s enough.”

Scott gave his friend a weak smile, but the encouraging words were different for him. He was their leader, the one who was supposed to protect the rest of his team. He didn’t get the luxury of being weak and he certainly was never supposed to be the one leading evil to their doorstep. The sooner they found Doctor Mayhem, the sooner that Scott could finally put this right. No one else was going to get hurt, that was a promise. He had to be better than his best.

A shrill beep from Mason’s sensors interrupted their conversation, and the screen flickered to life, red dots appearing at the edge of Beacon Hills.

“Hang on, I’ve got something!” Maze Master dived for his keyboard, tapping out a quick command to focus in on the energy readings. “There’s a spike, same sort of energy as you, Rocket Boy. It’s fading, but I’m definitely picking up something. It doesn’t seem like an attack, there’s nothing out in that part of the city. None of Doctor Mayhem’s usual targets.”

“We should still check it out.” Scott pulled the last of the suction cup sensors from his skin and stood, studying the screen. “We can be there in less than five minutes. We don’t have any other leads right now and it’s worth a look.” He tapped the com button on his chest. “Pack, we’ve got a call. Suit up!”

“Guys, with these new search parameters, this isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before. I’m not sure what it means yet.” Mason interrupted him. “It could mean going up against Big Ugly again.”

“Then it means that we’re gonna kick some ass,” Malia snarled, grinning like a shark. Right behind her, Stiles zipped into view, already incredibly gaudy in bright red and black. “Someone say something about kicking ass?”

Malia snorted.

Through the coms, Kira’s voice sounded a thousand miles away as she snuck out into the night, but the rest of the team was already rushing to meet her.

“We can’t just hit it head on,” Scott said. “Keep it distracted. Keep it angry. Tempest and I are going to see if we can pin it down, keep it from running.”

“I love being bait.” The Stiles roared over the wind, keeping up with his flying companions with ease. “I’m very tasty. Just ask anyone.”

They landed at an abandoned hospital, where ivy had taken over most of its walls, and the pavement broke apart around wild grass.

“ _You’re looking at Genesis Medical Center. Closed down a couple of years back,”_  The Maze Master announced. “ _The signal’s coming from inside. I’m still having trouble pinning it down.”_

”Be on the lookout, everyone.” Rocket Boy ordered, tone hushed. “Ms. Monster, can you give us an idea of what’s going on inside?”

“On it.” Her form melted, body shifting so fast it was almost a blur. The young woman disappeared, melting into a sleek dark coyote. She gave a trickster’s smile, flicking her tail as she melted into the shadows. Scott put an arm on Stiles’s shoulder, pulling him away for a whispered word.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this? Being bait for someone like Doctor Mayhem or even this Big Ugly is dangerous. This isn’t your fight, Stiles. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Stiles was taken aback by the concern in Scott’s voice, stuck between recoiling away and maintaining his cover as Rocket Boy’s best friend. “You really care?”

“Of course I do. It’s not that I think you can’t do it, I just-, all of this is risky. Just be careful, okay?”

Stiles brushed Scott’s hand from his arm, striking a heroic pose when all he wanted to do was punch Scott in his stupid, caring face. “If you trust the rest of the team to handle this, then you have to trust me too. I’m The Stiles, of course I can do this. Stop worrying, Pocket Rocket, we’ve got this covered.”

Scott didn’t argue, but he still looked troubled as he pulled away, focusing back on the building. Stiles wished he didn’t seem so genuine. _Don’t forget who the real enemy is._

* * *

 

Things were always simpler as an animal. Malia never lost herself, but a new set of instincts settled over her own and the world was painted in a thousand new scents. She worked hard to understand each form, it took months of study and practice to perfect the change and learn how to shift her body into something new. With enough practice, it felt just as comfortable as a second skin.

Malia padded across the dusty floor, skulking low and scenting the air. There was something there, a new crisscross trail of scents that cut through the dust and rot. Humans, definitely, but there was something else too. It didn’t seem human, but the heavy musk wasn’t something she recognized. She crept through the abandoned hospital past crumbling nurses’ stations and dusty corridors before freezing.

There wasn’t a lot that could scare Ms. Monster, but what she saw stopped her dead in her tracks. The surgical wing had been transformed into a scene right out of a horror movie. Rusting operating tables had been pushed together, and on each of them rested a long spherical casket, connected to dozens of wires that lead to a large wall of blinking machinery, even though there was no electricity in the building. She counted five in total. She found Lydia Martin in the one farthest from the door.

A loud heartbeat thudded in the makeshift laboratory, hidden beneath the crackle of electricity that pulsed into each pod, and shadows shifted as something moved. Bright blue eyes pierced through the darkness with an unnatural glow.

“ _Got anything, Ms. Monster?”_ Rocket Boy asked through their communicators.

Malia never got the chance to answer.

Big Ugly burst through the entrance to the hospital, sending glass and twisted metal spraying out in all directions. Stiles grabbed Kira and Scott by the back of their uniform, jerking them out of the way and they rolled out of its grasp.

“Holy hell!”

“Keep it off-kilter!” Rocket Boy yelled as Tempest took to the sky, blasting it between the eyes with a bolt of lightning that only seemed to make it angrier. Stiles cursed up a storm and zipped around the monster, hitting at its joints, keeping it distracted. Scott took his opening, flying straight at it to knock it into the dirt, burying it under cracked asphalt. He punched it again and again, with fists that glowed blue, pummeling it into the ground, until it reached up with one meaty fist and threw him across the court.

“Rocket Boy!” Kira yelled, and a tornado caught him mid-air, slowing his descent before Scott squashed. Rocket Boy still couldn’t get up. There was a screaming in his head, as distracting as the heat that coursed through his body, and it had nothing to do with the communicator that buzzed in his ears.

“Guys, all I’m doing is making Big Ugly mad!” Stiles said, words almost swallowed in a blur of air as he dodged and ducked around meaty fists. Punching the beast hurt him more than it, and no matter how his thoughts raced, he couldn’t find any solution. Tempest’s voice grounded him.

“Get Rocket Boy back, The Stiles. I’m going to hit him with something big.”  The moon above them disappeared behind rumbling storm clouds. Her voice echoed as she spoke, suddenly everywhere at once, as omniscient as air. The pressure dropped, and the temperature went with it, and no one would know that Kira was scared.

“Not yet!”

Scott didn’t realize he’d yelled. His entire body glowed with an unnatural energy, the ground beneath his feet melting beneath the glow. It thrummed through his veins, lighting every cell in his body on fire. Suddenly, Big Ugly didn’t look like a monster. Big Ugly didn’t look like anything at all, except a large, pulsing mass of energy, and Rocket Boy lifted his arms and _pulled_.

The monster howled, grabbing its head as cracks appeared in its rock-like skin. Everything had slowed to a halt. There was an unfamiliar hunger that ate through Rocket Boy’s senses. It was insatiable and overbearing, and Big Ugly was a feast. The energy in the creature called to his own power, tied together by whatever Doctor Mayhem had done to them. They were linked and Scott opened the floodgates, swallowing down Big Ugly’s power. He didn’t see the way blood poured from its wounds, or how its armor chipped to give way to vulnerable flesh. All Rocket Boy saw were the bright lights that shielded him. He took him away one by one, until - “Now.”

The Stiles was in no shape to pull anyone back, but the sky split open with an icy roar, and Big Ugly was pelted with hail.

The creature stumbled, massive bulk sinking to the ground beneath the Tempest’s assault, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Stiles watched in horror as Scott floated a few feet from the around, surrounded by a nimbus of glowing blue. Rocket Boy’s hands were outstretched, spooling energy from the beast into himself like strings on a puppet. He was draining the creature dry. Stiles knew he should help, but he was rooted to the spot, fear freezing him solid.

“Don’t.” He whispered, voice rasping as he tried to find the words. “Stop!”

It was lost as the storm screamed around them and the monster collapsed to the dirt. Slowly, the ice slowed, hailstones heaped across the grass and stained a sickly black where they’d struck hard enough to break through Big Ugly’s rocky skin. Scott’s feet hit the ground, and he stumbled as he lost the connection, an empty craving still clawing at the inside of his chest for more. His head rang slightly, but it hadn’t hurt. In fact, Rocket Boy couldn’t remember the last time he felt so good. It was like someone had supercharged his batteries and with every step forward, small arcs of blue energy crackled from his feet like tiny bolts of lightning.

Kira came to rest lightly beside Rocket Boy, peering down at the hulking mass. “Is it still alive?”

“I think so?” Rocket Boy didn’t want to get too close. He wasn’t sure if Big Ugly was gathering its strength for a round two or what would happen if that hunger got any worse. He shook off the feeling and touched his communicator. “Maze Master, we brought down one of Doctor Mayhem’s experiments. It looks like we have the right spot. Any word from Ms. Monster?”

“Your friend is fine.”

The voice went through Scott like a knife, subtle and sharp, the kind that cut so deep it didn’t ache until it was pulled free. He wasn’t sure if the words were spoken out loud or whispered into his head, they touched that snarling emptiness inside of him with ease. It soothed with intimate promises, evading all of his defenses before he even knew to protect himself.

The young heroes turned, facing off against their true enemy.

Doctor Mayhem, Peter Hale. Scott had only learned his name after they had formed the team. Before that, he’d been a faceless, nameless fear that followed after him no matter how far he ran. His memories of the man were jumbled and fractured, but he knew that arrogant smile. Doctor Mayhem seemed completely at ease, dressed in a slim dark business suit and looking out of place among the dust and crumbling architecture. Simple and classy, he reeked of both power and money.

“Scott McCall.” He purred and the young hero gasped at the feel of his real name on his enemy’s lips. “I was wondering when you’d come to see me.”

Underneath his mask, the blood drained from Scott’s face. For one terrifying moment, all he could think of was what Doctor Mayhem had done with his knowledge. He’d left his mom, adopted a superhero identity to hide who he really was. If Peter knew who he was, there was no way he could escape, because the one person who mattered most had never left their home. “Keep an eye out, Pack.” He said, more confident than he felt. “Don’t get too close. We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“That’s hurtful, Scott. All this time, you and your friends have been a thorn in my side.” His smile sharpened into something vengeful and dangerous. “I can finally repay you for all your trouble.”

The roar came out of nowhere. Tempest gasped as an incredible pressure on her back sent her tumbling to the ground, as Ms. Monster raised a terrifying claw to tear her through her spine. She’d shifted from gnat to predator in a matter of seconds, and Kira thought she’d been prepared for anything. Stiles screamed, running as fast as he could and ramming his shoulder into the lioness before Kira was torn to ribbons.

Peter Hale just _watched_.

Malia fought with a ferocity that they’d never experienced, forced to ignore the pain that came with switching forms so quickly. She turned from snake to crow to coyote, weaker than Tempest and slower than The Stiles, but when she pumped venom through his veins, it stopped mattering. As Stiles made his retreat, a powerful blast pinned Malia to the ground, trapping her in a half-sphere made of energy. Every time she clawed against it, sparks littered the ground, and through the glow, they got glimpses of her form shifting again and again in search of escape.

“Ms. Monster, stop!” Kira pleaded, but Malia’s only response was a fang-filled snarl. Her hands crackled with energy.

Malia shifted again to her gorilla form, slamming her enormous fists against her prison. Cracks spider-webbed across the sphere, the air smelled with the acrid scent of ozone and scorched flesh. With a crash, the energy failed and Ms. Monster broke free. She scooped Stiles up in one hand, the speedster slowed by the venom burning through his body, and shook him until he went limp. She tossed him to the side and howled.

Rocket Boy fired rapid bolts of blue energy from overhead trying to knock Ms. Monster back as she shifted again into a sleek, powerful mountain lion. He twisted in midair, flinging himself out of her reach as heavy clawed paws sliced close enough to catch his uniform. “Tempest, is Stiles okay?!”

_“I’ve still got a heartbeat.”_ Maze Master said in his ear. _“But his vitals are all over the place.”_

Bright metal caught the filtered sunlight as Tempest drew her sword. Her eyes had gone white and the air around her whirled in her own mini tornado. She was as powerful with a blade as she was with her powers, and the metal itself seemed to crackle with lightening as she swung her sword to draw Malia’s attention. The mountain lion hissed and lunged, dodging the rapid strikes and forcing Kira back against the wall.

They were losing, Scott could see it already. None of them were willing to take down a friend and whatever had possessed Malia, it didn’t seem like she felt the same. They had to stop her before someone got her, Scott wasn’t going to have the blood of his friends on his hands. Blue light beat around him like a pulse as Rocket Boy raced off to face the smug man in his suit, the nightmare he’d been running from so long. “Let her go now!”

“Or what, Scott?” Peter asked in a lazy drawl. “You’ll make me? You don’t get it, do you? What I can do to her I can do to the whole world! I just need to find a way to amplify my powers, and I’ll take them all. That’s where our dear friend Lydia comes in, with her abilities enhanced, she’ll sing my power into their minds before they can resist.” The villain laughed and leaned closer, completely unafraid of the seething hero.

“She’s one of mine, just like you are. Like you’ll always be.”

Power crackled at Scott’s fingertips, spreading through his nerves and burning through his skin and bleeding into his veins. This was his chance. This might be the only one he ever got, and with a desperate shout, he lunged. Then all at once, everything stopped.

The last thing he saw was Peter Hale’s wicked smile.

* * *

 

 “Malia,” Kira whispered, soft and sad through gritted teeth. She pushed hard on her sword, trying to force back the lioness’s fangs as they tried to close around it. Blood dripped sluggishly down Tempest’s arm, even as her skin struggled to knit itself together, but her teammate never relented. Her arms were trembling with effort, sweat dripping down the bridge of her nose. Rocket Boy or The Stiles were nowhere to be seen.

“Malia, fight it, please,  _please_.” 

For a second, something like recognition flashed in feral eyes. It was all the break Kira needed. She pulled back her sword and sliced through the lion’s shoulder before a bolt of lighting courses through enchanted metal. Ms. Monster howled as she went down, flung by the force of Tempest’s attack. She didn’t get back up.

Kira rushed to her side, as her animal shape twisted and gave way to an all too familiar face. She ran her fingers through Malia’s hair slowly, heart caught in her throat when the other woman let out a tired whimper.

It was lost in the confident cadence of a familiar voice. Kira had never heard Scott like that before.

“A pity… But no matter. I have a new toy to play with.”

“Rocket Boy?” Kira’s voice broke as she met Scott’s eyes, but there was nothing behind the mask. He stood completely still, and there was something unnatural about how calm he seemed in the middle of so much chaos.

“Scott and I had a little talk, isn’t that right?” Peter chuckled, putting a possessive hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Why don’t you show your friends the extent of the gifts I’ve given you?”

The razor sharp smile on Scott’s face was too cruel to be his own and Kira gasped. He moved in a streak of light, fists glowing with power as he drove Tempest back from Ms. Monster’s prone form. She blocked his blasts with the edge of her sword, barely able to defend herself from the onslaught. She screamed as a blast caught her in the side, searing through her uniform in a black scar and stumbled back. Scott raised his fist to strike her down, cold and emotionless.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!” The Stiles slammed the full weight of his body into Rocket Boy, sending them both sprawling to the floor. He was first on his feet, sprinting too fast to be seen as he pummeled Scott from every direction. Real fear coursed through him as he kept his enemy off balance.

“Stop.” Scott’s voice shivered through him and every muscle in Stiles’s body seized without his consent. He skidded face first into the dirt, horrified by the look of surprise on Scott’s face. It was unexpected, Rocket Boy had no idea that he could reach out with his power and make this boy dance like a puppet on the end of a string. There was a connection between them, he could feel it humming through the air and curling pleasurably through every nerve.

Scott crooked his finger, blue lightning racing down his arm as mirroring currents cracked down Stiles’s body in a wave of agony. The speedster screamed, writhing as he seized and shook. “Interesting.” Scott breathed, slowly walking closer as he released his power. Stiles curled into himself with a hoarse sob. “I can feel you. I can taste the way your heart beats.”

“Getting a little creepy there, Scotty.” Stiles couldn’t keep the terrified quaver from his voice. “Come on buddy, you’ve got to wake up.”

“I feel fine, Stiles. I feel better than I have in a long time. There’s so much _power_.” He waved his hand again and Stiles’s body bowed at his command.

The boy screamed, filled with terror as his bones ground together and popped with Rocket Boy’s careless cruelty. “Stop!” He howled. “Stop! Fuck stop!”

Agony like Stiles had never known tore through his nerves. The damage was swift and brutal. He lost control of his legs, spasming as his spine shattered. Warm piss dripped down his thighs, and all Stiles could do was cry. He screamed until his throat ached, voice gone hoarse as Peter Hale laughed, and Rocket Boy just looked on with sick fascination. And even then, Stiles tried.

“Stop, please, stop,” the speedster begged, blinking tears out of his eyes, as a painfully familiar heat coursed through his veins. “This isn’t you, Scott. You’re supposed to be a hero.”

“Quiet.” Scott dismissed, and Stiles’s jaw clamped shut, hard enough to cut off his tongue if he hadn’t been lucky enough to draw it back. The very connection changed them, and even if Stiles couldn’t speak, Rocket Boy still heard him plead.

_“Stop…”_

Scott bent down to watch the speedster beg, straddling Stiles’s body to chase that excruciatingly blissful connection. He walked his fingers down Stiles’s chest, fascinated by the pull between them and digging deeper. The plea was on the boy’s lips, inaudible though Scott could read it in his captive’s terrified eyes.

Fainter still was the speedster’s dying heart.

Scott could feel it beating in his palm.

It was glorious.

Scott gasped, the bright blue energy glowing around his body edged in a brilliant red. With a shout, he slammed his fist into the concrete beside Stiles’s head as the speedster squeezed his eyes shut and flinched away. His power flickered, wild and erratic as Scott pulled himself to his feet. Rocket Boy turned towards Peter, raising his head to stare at his enemy with glowing red eyes.

Peter Hale didn’t like being caught off guard. “Kill him!” He ordered, flicking his hand out with the command as Scott stumbled like he’d been physically struck. The cloud of red light throbbed, a violent bloody heartbeat that forced Stiles’s own sluggish pulse to beat in rhythm.

“I said  _kill him_!” Doctor Mayhem snarled, forcing his power deep inside the boy, using their connection to crawl inside his head and rewrite his thoughts. “I made you, I own you. Obey me!”

A breeze swirled around the young hero’s feet, boots lifting up from the ground to hover in the maelstrom of power. “No. I’m not going to hurt them.” Energy burst from his body like an explosion, shockwaves flinging everyone off their feet as Rocket Boy channeled his energy at his creator. The world melted in a blaze of crimson, the air seared from the blast as Doctor Mayhem screamed in rage. “I’m not going to hurt anyone!”

When the light finally faded, Scott collapsed, small flickers of red electricity crawling across his skin.

The last thing he saw was Big Ugly’s batlike wing’s beating sluggishly as their enemies made their retreat. Then there was darkness.

The shuffle of movement came after, with the team too battered and bruised to stop. Stiles pulled crawled through the dirt on arms that felt like they were filled with lead. His legs too weak to support his weight. Even with his accelerated healing, he was still struggling to put himself together, but the nightmare was almost over.

He screamed as his back split open from the effort of dragging himself across the ground, blood dripping sluggishly into his costume, but his target didn’t even stir, red sparks spilling from his unmoving fingers. The rest of the world was a million miles away, and Stiles pushed Scott unto his back. His face was slack in sleep, ashen in the moonlight. Doctor Mayhem’s powers had taken their toll on him, and all Stiles could see was a young boy. Stiles hated him for it.

He pressed his hand on Scott’s chest, focusing on speeding up until matter blurred together. It would be quick. He’d reach into Rocket Boy’s chest and pull out his heart, break open his lungs, tear out his throat. Then it would be over.

But Scott hadn’t given in.

Doctor Mayhem was at the root of all of this, and Scott hadn’t given in. He fought until it almost killed him to break through Doctor Mayhem’s control and refused to kill Stiles. _I’m not going to hurt anyone_. Scott was willing to die for that belief. The speedster didn’t know if that was enough to bet the rest of the world’s safety on, but maybe it was enough to keep him from killing an unarmed boy in his sleep.

Stiles activated his communicator, and rasped, “Maze Master, we’re going to need help getting home.”


	6. Chapter 6

A flash of light cut red across Rocket Boy’s closed eyes and startled him awake. Scott groaned, instinctively trying to shy away from the disturbance, only to find that he couldn’t move.

“Easy there, Rocket Boy.”

Squinting against the bright light, Scott could almost make out the Maze Master’s outline, but everything was tinged in blue. It took him a second to realize that everything  _was_ blue. An energy shield, not unlike the ones he could generate was draped across him, pinning down his arms and legs. Sparks of red shot intermittently out of the tips of his fingers, purple behind the shield.

“Mason, what’s going on?” He asked groggily. Everything felt heavy, like he was waking up with a cold. There must have been a balloon between his ears. Nothing sounded right, and his head felt lighter than air. It wasn’t enough to make him forget everything that happened. “Where is everyone? Are they okay?”

“I’m a little worried about you, dude. Can you break out?” Something was off about Mason’s voice, but Scott couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He tugged once on his restraints. They didn’t move, but there was a familiar quality to them. Like the difference between sugar and that powdery stuff that came in a pink sachet. It was enough like him that Scott could consider reaching out, snapping it apart.

“I think so. Maybe? I don’t… I don’t really want to try.” He confessed, swallowing thickly.  

Mason let out a sigh of relief, and just like that, the shield was gone. “Do you know how difficult it is to think up something that can trap you  _and_  Malia on short-notice, Scott?”

“If anyone could find a way, it’s you, dude.” He rasped, sitting up with a groan and cradling his aching head. He felt completely drained, his eyes gritty and the tips of his fingers tingled like they’d been burned. “What happened?”

“Best as I can figure it, Doctor Mayhem took control of you with some kind of mind control. I didn’t find any machines that could do it, so I think it might be one of his powers.” Mason sighed heavily. Their enemy had been dangerous enough with his machine servants, having powers on top of it was just bad news for all of them. Especially with how easily their team could succumb. 

Scott shivered, rubbing his fingers against his throbbing skull. He could still feel Peter’s touch like a poison whispering among his thoughts, promising power for obedience. The images were muddied and distorted, but he could feel the sick pleasure he’d gotten as Stiles had writhed beneath him.  _What the hell had happened?_

“Mason?” He held out his hands, tiny sparks of red dancing across the tips of his fingers. “What’s happening to me?”

The genius hesitated, trying to hide his worry behind a terrible poker face. “I’m not really sure. Whatever happened kind of, uh, short circuited something? You’ve been giving off readings that are off the chart.”

“But you can fix it.” Scott was afraid to ask the question. Mason’s face giving him the answer he feared. He curled his fingers into his palm. “I see.”

“I’m not giving up, I just need more time.”

“I know, we’ll figure it out. But focus on the rest of the team first. Are they okay? I-I hurt them. I  _wanted_  to hurt them.”

“Hey. Scott.” Mason frowned, but he closed his hands over Scott’s sparking finger tips. It was enough to surprise Rocket Boy, but not enough to make his friend let go. “Stiles told me all about it. They’re okay. Everyone’s okay. Kira and Stiles are getting some rest, and Malia’s worming it out. No one blames you for anything.”

Whatever Mason wanted to say next was lost as Scott’s hands flared red, and power prickled across his palm. He gasped, withdrawing instinctively and Scott recoiled in shame.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it!” But the more he panicked, the more powerful the blasts were, until all Rocket Boy could do was curl into himself, trying to shield the rest of the room from any outburst as his head throbbed and his heart raced.  _I didn’t mean it,_ he pleaded, clutching the words to his chest, but Mason’s scared face filled his thoughts. He needed to control his powers, but he had no way of knowing how. None of his former methods were working. It seemed that even after he escaped his creator, he was still a monster.

“Scott,” Mason interrupted, voice soft and stern, like he tried to be when he was trying to appear older. It never worked, not really, not on his friends. His friends always saw through him. “You have to calm down. I think your emotions are affecting your powers. Your readings are spiking.”

_Calm down?_  How was he supposed to calm down when he was lit up like a Christmas tree and bright red? He had barely learned how to control his powers before, the early months had been a nightmare of trial and error and he’d left home before anyone had gotten hurt. His team had helped him find the focus he needed to use his abilities without hurting anyone around him and Doctor Mayhem had done something to destroy that control completely. Scott gripped the edge of the medical table, trying to focus on his breathing.

_He wasn’t going to let this happen again_.

“Scott?” Mason asked gently, keeping a safe distance. “Are you okay?”

No, Scott was so far from okay but he forced a smile. Even if he’d escaped, Doctor Mayhem had won in the end. “I’ll be okay. I’ve got this, just don’t touch me to be on the safe side.”

The young genius didn’t seem convinced, but the flicker around Scott died to a faint reddish halo and he exhaled a worried breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. “Why don’t you go rest? You went through a lot. It was a tough battle.”

“I need to check on the team to make sure they’re okay. And what about Lydia? Did we find the missing people?” He brushed away Mason’s concerns. If he could stand, he could do his job. Maybe if he stayed focused on something, the raging power inside of him would quiet as well.

“We found five stasis pods in the medical facility, but the technology was… waking them up hasn’t been so successful.”

“What do you mean?” Scott’s heart sank as Mason couldn’t meet his eyes. “Mason, what happened, what aren’t you telling me?”

“We were careful, Scott, but everything was so strange. I can barely tell what we’re dealing with. Doctor Mayhem is playing around with half-finished machines, and every time we tried to open up those pods he used, things went wonky. Two people didn’t make it. Lydia’s alive, but she’s in a coma, I don’t know if she’s going to wake up.”

Two deaths on his hands, the very people they’d tried so hard to save. This was his fault for rushing into a situation before they had all the facts.

“I’m doing everything I can, but…”

“You’ll get her through this. I know you can.” Scott said, voice warmed with a quiet confidence he kept for his team in spades, but always seemed to run out when he needed it for himself. Mason looked so helplessly grateful, that Scott was reminded of the difference a couple of years could bring. The boy genius wasn’t much younger than them. Sometimes Scott wondered if by dragging Mason down with them, he’d doomed him, too. “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea if you got some rest, too.”

Mason tried for a laugh that sounded too tired. Scott let him get away with it. He walked around the other hero, wary of his distance, his hands balled into fists in case he thought to do something reckless, like reach out.

The medical bay was down the hall, but there was only one bed occupied. Kira slept with a face tucked into her arm, bundled up in her spare pajamas. Scott recognized them. They were bright purple and covered in ‘ _I love ewes’_ but he made a beeline for the tiny basin in the corner of the room. It held a couple of rocks, a little plastic basin of water and a gaudy plastic palm tree. Scott could barely make out the planarian, oozing comfortably in artificial lighting, but he whispered his thanks to Malia.

“I can never tell when she’s sleeping like that,” Kira mumbled. Her hair was done up in a bun at the top of her head, fuzzy with static electricity. The terrifying Tempest yawned into her palm, and squished her pillow tighter.

“Turning into a worm to heal is kind of genius. I sort of wish we all could do it.” Scott said quietly, smile quickly slipping off his face. “You okay?”

“I’ll get there, don’t worry about me.” Kira brushed off his concern. She seemed worn and tired, but still whole.

“Of course I worry, it’s my fault you’re hurt.” The haze of red crackled brightly around his body like a static charge and he took a step back in case he lost control again.

“It’s not, Scott. You and Malia, he did something to you. I know you’d never hurt us.”

Scott nodded, but it didn’t help the guilt. He’d been so afraid for so long that he would hurt someone with his powers. All the training and all the restraint gone if Doctor Mayhem could wield him like a weapon, and the team had no idea how dangerous he could be. How was he ever going to face Stiles again after what had happened? They needed someone who could guide them forward, not hold them back. With Doctor Mayhem hanging over their heads, they needed that now more than ever.

“There’s something I want to ask you.” Scott said. Even with his staunch determination, the words wouldn’t come easy, but it had to be done. “Something’s wrong with me. The last battle when he made me and Stiles… Doctor Mayhem did something, and I can’t control my powers.”

As he spoke, his arms crackled red. Kira sat up quickly, her eyes wide, but it was Scott who moved away first, hands balled into fists at his side. Mason had said his control was tied to his emotions and Scott knew he was barely hanging on. ”But I’m working on it. I need to fix this, but I… I can’t yet. I need you to lead The Pack.”

“What? Scott, you’re leaving us?” Kira was horrified by the possibility. They may have been a team, but they were friends before heroes. She didn’t want Scott to end up hurting himself.

“No, but I don’t trust myself the way things are, and we all need someone we can depend on. Someone like you.”

Kira’s eyes widened and she gently took Scott’s hands in hers, ignoring the way that tiny sparks leapt like lightning between them. “You’re going to get through this, Scott. If anyone can figure this out, it’s you, and you have us here to help. You don’t need to step down, you’re the one who holds this team together.”

He flinched at her touch, so afraid that it was going to hurt her, but she didn’t seem like she even noticed the prickling shocks. “What if I lose control? What if he makes me do something to hurt you all and I next time, I can’t stop him? It’s too dangerous. Besides, you’d be every bit as good a leader as I am. We’re all just making this up as we go along and I trust you. You’d make the right decisions.”

“Then I decide not to make this decision yet. Doctor Mayhem got into Malia’s head too, we’ll find a way to stop him. And Scott…” She squeezed his had tight until he looked down at her. “You  _didn’t_  hurt us. You broke his control once, you can do it again. Same with your powers. If you could learn to control it once, you can do it again. I believe in you.”

She meant well, but there was nothing that could stop the cold hollow guilt that threatened to swallow him down. This was his responsibility, his  _fault_ , what kind of leader could he be if he couldn’t even protect his friends from himself? “You should get some rest, I’m going to go lie down for a bit.” Scott ducked out of the room before she could stop him. 

The halls were empty without his team and felt out of place. After so much chaos, it was strangely quiet now. When Scott bumped into Stiles, he yelped in surprise, the speedster appearing almost out of nowhere. 

He didn’t miss the way Stiles’s eyes narrowed or the defensive way he stood, as if poised to run if Scott took a single step closer. A cruel sneer twisted his friend’s face and Scott’s heart sank. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”

Scott’s shoulders sagged, and he had to keep himself from turning away. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” He was always quick to apologize. That only seemed to make Stiles angrier. The speedster bristled, bringing himself up to full height, but Scott still noticed the way his gaze moved towards his hands and the way they flickered red. So when it hit, Stiles’s anger took him by surprise, and Scott had to take a step back.

“Yeah, you weren’t. You weren’t paying attention to anything for a long fucking time, or you’d’ve realized that keeping shit from the rest of your team would get them hurt.” Stiles accused.

Scott flinched like he’d been hit, averting his gaze as a spark of energy raced through his bones. He could feel his face getting warmer, his heart beat too loud in his ears. “I’m sorry Stiles. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But you did! You fucked all of us over, and none of this would’ve happened if you just came clean in the beginning! You couldn’t even do that much! How can you call yourself a hero?!”

Scott blanched, but he met Stiles’s gaze with something sterner than shame for the first time. He was breathing hard, but Stiles was the first to look away. “And what about you, Stiles? We don’t know anything about where you came from or what you’re really doing here. We trusted you because you were trying to help us. Maybe I did make a mistake keeping this from everyone, but what Doctor Mayhem did to me was  _my_  business. He took my life away from me, he turned me into something I didn’t want to be and I’m doing my best to find a way and make something good out of it. Telling my friends all the terrible details about the worst thing that ever happened to me wasn’t going to make us any more determined to stop Peter.”

Stiles stared in shock at the pain and rage in Scott’s expression. And worst of all, the tired resignation to accept a role he never wanted because a monster had taken away his choice. Stiles tried to speak, he tried to force himself to say anything, but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth as the other boy gave him a bitter smile in a halo of red light.

“I was afraid of him, but I was more afraid of myself. Of what I was. I couldn’t control it and I knew he’d be coming for me eventually, so I ran. I just ran, and I kept running for a long time, and I put everything behind me. Especially Him. The Pack’s the only good thing I’ve ever had in a long time, and I’m sorry I didn’t want them to know I was a monster like him. I’m sorry you got hurt. But I’m not the only one keeping secrets.”

He brushed passed Stiles without another word, leaving the fastest boy on earth frozen still.


	7. Chapter 7

Stiles had grown up in the same four walls, trapped in a cage. Sure, it was nice as cages go, filled with books and toys and even a viewset to watch broadcasts. Everything a growing lab rat would need. It hadn’t always been that way, he’d been free once back when the world made sense and he wasn’t always alone.

The Autarch’s world was a peaceful one. Wars had ended, and people all over the world received enough to eat and access to education. There was prosperity and harmony. Nations and borders didn’t exist anymore. No one needed them when the Autarch was in absolute control. Their great leader had risen to power suddenly, a hero against oppression and destruction that took control when the corrupt governments of the old world could no longer be reasoned with. Things were better under the Autarch’s loving hand, and every word of their glorious history had been drilled into Stiles in school.

For most of his life, he believed it with the same unquestioning acceptance of any child. The world was safe because the Autarch was there to take care of them. The only people who resisted were rebels and traitors hell bent on destroying everything they’d built. It didn’t matter that the Autarch’s troops destroyed their critics swiftly and brutally, the violence was kept out of the public eyes and Stiles was happily oblivious.

Until one night the guards came for him.

He could never understand why. His parents were as loyal as anyone, right up until the moment the red and black uniformed soldiers stormed into their home and ripped him out of his mother’s arms at the age of twelve. When she tried to fight back, she was shot. Stiles never forgot the look of surprise on her face as she died.

That was seven years ago, trapped in this hell with no one to talk to but the almost silent scientists who seemed like they were always taking notes whenever they asked him questions. There were others with him,  _experiments_ he came to learn, but he was never allowed to speak to any of them. His life was two small rooms and a panel of glass where he could be observed like an animal.

That, and the table.

He never remembered much when they laid him flat on the operating table, pumped so full of drugs that he was never sure if his memories were real until he found the scars after some of his “treatments.” They cut him to pieces, poisoned him with chemicals, and rewrote his very DNA until human seemed more like a suggestion.

Stiles could never move on the table. Try as he might, he never got the chance to fight back. He was never strong enough to break their chains, and never fast enough to escape. Some sessions were worse. The ones in red. Those memories seeped through his thoughts, along with the echoes of crackling energy, so heavy and so thick it threatened to choke him. It clung to his skin before it burrowed through, bleeding into his nose and mouth until it was all Stiles could feel, all he could know. Then He would come.

The demon with blazing eyes and a stoic stare, the same hero they built monuments for in every city and every town.

Stiles only ever saw him on the table. The all-powerful Autarch in his cruel brilliance towered over him, untouchable and omnipotent, commanding his subject with inhumane precision. All Stiles could do was burn. Only tonight, the Autarch’s eyes were a warm brown, and Stiles recognized the young boy staring down at him. His brows were creased with concern, full mouth pinched and unhappy, but his hands glowed that same unforgiving red.

“I’m sorry, Stiles. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” Scott McCall said. Stiles watched with horror as fissures of energy cut through the hero’s skin. Blood dripped sluggishly from every crack, and Stiles screamed and screamed and _screamed,_ but there was no one there to save him. He had to save them all.

His shoulders ached and arms were as stiff as ice, but he pushed and pushed, until his hands dug through flesh, moving so quickly they phased through his tormentor’s heart. Rocket Boy’s gasped, a soft, startled sound that echoed through Stiles’s mind, and he reached out with gentle hands to cup his face.

“ _I’m sorry, Stiles. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,”_

Stiles woke with a scream in his throat, and his heart trying to break through his ribs. His eyes couldn’t adjust to the darkness in his room fast enough, and for a second, he was still on that table, still begging for everything to stop. He stumbled out of bed, struggling for air when all he could do was inhale, his hands shaking so fast they started to blur. Just as fast as they’d need to be to slip through human flesh.

Stiles took off running.

He had to get _out_ , away from the walls that penned him in like a cage and threatened to crush him. Thoughts skittered sideways, panic taking over and he couldn’t breathe. The world was a haze of red and blood, the dream chasing at his heels no matter how fast he ran. The speedster burst from the tower, tearing through the city streets in a blur. The sonic boom behind him shattered windows as he pushed himself faster until his bones started vibrating so hard that he felt like he was coming apart. There was no escape, the poison too deep inside and try as he might, he’d never be able to rip it out. Even across time, the Autarch was still tightening the leash around his neck.

The boy slowed and came to a stumbling stop in an empty field miles from the city’s limits, tall grass stretching out towards lonely horizons under the half-moon. He sucked in great gasps, trying to relearn how to breathe before screaming his rage at the quiet night. Fists slammed into the soft earth over and over again until red broke through the skin, mixing with the black dirt. “WHY?”

It wasn’t  _fair_. How much more was he supposed to give? The Autarch had taken everything from him, his family, his life, Kira. He had been taken apart and put back together again, remade in the Autarch’s image for what end? All the pain, being broken over and over again until his escape, but it never stopped. Cities burned to the ground to flush out the dwindling numbers of rebels and Kira who had given him the only kindness he’d ever known had died for this one chance to set things right. Stiles had every chance to kill his nightmare and hold the Autarch’s cruel heart in his hands.

But it wasn’t the Autarch, it was Scott. Warm eyes, bright smile, brave when he had every reason in the world to be afraid and so likely to sacrifice every part of himself if it meant saving others. Scott was a monster, he was supposed to be…

“Stiles?”

The speedster wheeled around, a snarl on his face, and Rocket Boy faltered. Stiles was so good at unraveling his concentration. Scott barely caught himself from tumbling into the dirt. His powers were still erratic and so much stronger than what he was accustomed. Trying to keep up with the other hero had shown him that much, but Scott still landed hard, falling to his knees in front of Stiles.

“Why are you here!?” Stiles demanded. Scott couldn’t get to his feet fast enough. Someday, the speedster’s anger would stop surprising him, but for now, it was still so hard to integrate that temper with the smiling guise everyone had bought into. Scott stood his ground.

“You ran, and… I was worried.” 

It was the wrong thing to say. Stiles spat accusations like venom. If he could draw blood on his tongue, he would. “Why?! You don’t trust me! You think I’m a liar! You think I’m a threat!”

His pulse was so loud in Scott’s ears, an overwhelming roar that he was sure could deafen him if he left it. It beat with the same rhythm that sent energy prickling through his fingers tips, and Scott knew that was too much of a coincidence. Something was wrong, something was different, and it was that difference that kept Stiles from running away.

“Because you’re my friend.” Scott said, taking a careful step closer, his hands held palm up. “And I think that, even if you’re not telling us everything, you’ve got a good reason for it, too.” 

Stiles looked away for the first time, face gone a splotchy red with exertion.

“This wasn’t about a book report at all, was it?”

Stiles looked away, lip curled in an angry snarl. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Scott took another step forward, hands outstretched like he was going to put a steadying hand on the other boy. Tiny sparks of red static flickered across his skin and Scott dropped his arms, embarrassed. “I knew you weren’t telling the truth about that, but I trusted you anyways, Stiles. You put your life on the line for us, you can’t fake that.”

“And what if it was? What if I was an enemy, huh?”  _What if I was supposed to kill you_? He almost screamed at Scott, shaking so hard he could feel his teeth rattle. This stupid, brave, beautiful boy who was going to grow up to be the monster who ruined the world. Everything the Autarch had done to him had been done to Scott, he never even considered the fact the Autarch could have been the same. All that loneliness and hurt, his whole life taken away from him and manipulated into some sort of inhuman puppet meant to serve their creator. Somehow, Scott had taken all that pain and used it to save everyone else.

It wasn’t fair.

Rocket Boy shrugged one shoulder, a small sad smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I’m willing to take that chance on you, dude. I’ve never had a best friend before and whatever it is you’re keeping from us, I trust you.”

“I don’t want to be your best friend.” Stiles felt a vindictive sort of satisfaction at watching the other boy flinch. Scott had no idea what he was dealing with, and the speedster both envied and loathed him for it. All he knew was that he wanted Scott to stop looking at him like he thought he could save him. “You don’t know anything. You don’t know how badly this falls apart. Something big is coming, something that’s going to tear us all apart, and I’m the only one who can save you.”

Stiles’ voice cracked, like he couldn’t help himself, his expression crumbling, but it wasn’t enough to keep Scott back.

“Stiles, what do you mean? We can help you. We won’t let anything happen to you.” Rocket Boy said. This was bigger than anything he expected. When he’d chased after the speedster, he was convinced Stiles was going to try something reckless, like attempt to corner Doctor Mayhem on his own. This was so much worse. Yet Scott never thought twice about offering assistance to a world beyond his own.

Stiles blanched in horror. “No, no I can’t. I can’t tell you, it’ll - it’ll mess with the timeline. It’ll ruin everything. It has to be me. I have to…”

He never got to finish. Scott rushed closer, slowly pulling him into a hug, and Stiles gasped like he’d been hit. His hands twitched by his sides, nerveless and weak, but he couldn’t remember the last time someone else had reached for him first. His shoulders slumped, like a puppet on loose strings, and Stiles let out a broken sob as he tucked his face into Scott’s shoulder. He held on to the boy he’d been sent to kill, and prayed that no one would ever hurt him again.

“It’s going to be okay.” Scott murmured, face pressed against the curve of Stiles’s neck. “We’re a team and that means we stand together. If you can’t tell me what’s going to happen, then at least let me help. I trust you, you have to trust me too.”

He sounded so sure that Stiles wanted to believe him. This boy was in the Autarch somewhere, something had happened to Scott to make him change from this gentle hero to a nightmare. There had to be a way to save him before it happened, but he didn’t know how. The only thing that made sense was the warm solid weight of Scott’s body holding him up. His nerves prickled at the touch of red sparks crackling where their skin touched, but the power was as quiet as Scott’s steady heartbeat. Stiles let himself relax into the touch, his entire body trembling as he took a shaky breath. In a moment like this, he really could believe.

“I’ll try.”

“Good.” Scott pulled back only slightly, resting his forehead against the other boy’s in a soft hazy glow of red. They were so close that his eyes almost crossed as he watched the speedster, hands slipping down from Stiles’s shoulders to rest with fluttering anxiety on his hips. They’d win because they had to win, but Stiles had been ready to bolt before they’d had a chance to start. A best friend was a rare thing, in just a few months, Stiles had come to know him better than anyone ever had. There was so much he wanted to say, terrified to stumble over the wrong word and ruin it all. Stiles had crashed into their lives and nothing had ever been the same, he wasn’t ready to lose him.

“Please don’t stop being my friend?” The words were whispered into the small spaces between them, hope and heartbreak strung tightly together.

“You’ve got me, Scott. You’ve still got me.”

Two boys sat in the dark empty field, holding on to each other as stars wheeled overhead.


	8. Chapter 8

“Ready, Pocket Rocket?” The voice came through his earpiece, clear even with the sound of alarm bells ringing below him, and Scott sighed.

“It’s Rocket Boy,  _The_  Stiles. Can’t you even get the code names right after six months?”

“I know what I mean. Maybe if you weren’t so damn short, you’d get another nickname.” The speedster teased, a tell-tale blur racing through the streets as Scott hovered above the bank.

“I’m one inch shorter than you, Stiles.”

“Like I said, Tiny Torpedo.”

Scott’s unimpressed groaning echoed through the coms.

“Bad guy coming up!” Stiles supplied gleefully. It was the worst thing. He knew he was being unhelpful. Scott knew he was being unhelpful. The entire world knew he was being unhelpful, but the speedster cackled as they rushed straight at the giant animated attack teddy bear the Toy Maker had set to rob the joint. Beacon Hills was a unique place. “I’ll hit ‘em high, you hit ‘em low and try to get past their ankles!”

Rocket Boy burst through the front doors just in time to watch the bear punch Stiles in mid-run, sending him flying through the air. He swooped in with a whoosh, streaks of red cutting through the bank and caught the speedster like a foul ball.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size, The Stiles?” 

“I had it under control!” Stiles squirmed unhappily, shoving at Rocket Boy’s face as the terrifying beast let out a distinctly threatening ‘I love you.’ Rocket Boy magnanimously dropped him. “You take the guys clearing out the safe. Fuzzbutt’s mine.”

“ _Or.”_ Scott caught him by the collar before he could run off, exchanging a wicked grin with his teammate. “We hit it together. This time you hit it low.”

“I can get behind that.” Stiles cracked his knuckles and adjusted his visor. “A front-row seat to Rocket Boy’s butt? Most people’ll kill for that.”

They charged. Mr. Fuzzbutt didn’t know what hit him.

They moved in tandem, a well-oiled machine. After so many take downs, it was almost second nature by now. Stiles rushed in low, almost too fast to stop himself as he slammed his fist into the bear’s plush gut to send it flying. Scott came in from above, grabbing the robot and flinging it across the bank. It hit the wall in a shower of broken electronics. Rocket Boy doubled back, the two sharing a mid-hair high five before targeting the Toy Maker herself.

“Come to play my game?” She cackled, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a brightly colored top. “Sorry, losers. Don’t you know I’m the only one who- _OOMF!”_ The villain landed flat on her back with a groan, cradling her jaw.

“Aw, come on!” The speedster skidded to a stop, hands on his hips to lecture his partner. “You can’t just punch a guy in the middle of her supervillain threat, dude. We didn’t even get an evil cackle or some kind of lame, toy themed threat. That’s totally one of the perks of the job.”

“Stiles, can we just focus on stopping the actual bad guy?” He hovered a few inches off the ground, not at all making sure he was taller than Stiles.

“We have to have a little fun with it, right? She brought a friggin robot bear, I’m sure she’s got some great puns about how she’ll beat us like Monopoly or something.

Rocket Boy just shook his head. “You’re willing to risk your life for stupid villain monologuing?”

Toy Maker rolled to her feet and snarled, readjusting her hat and opening her mouth to deliver her fearsome threat. These heroes were going to suffer for this indignity, they were all going to suffer. Stiles’s fist shot sideways, punching Toy Maker in the mouth without breaking eye contact with Scott or missing a beat in their argument.

“Seriously, you just need to have a little more fun with this whole superhero thing.”

Scott rolled his eyes, but even his mask couldn’t hide the devious smile and he put on his best superhero voice. “Like, Toy Maker, you’re finished. It’s straight to jail with you, don’t pass go or collect $200!”

“I hate you so much.”

“Or, it’s time to put away your toys, Toy Maker, because play time is over.”

Stiles groaned dramatically, stomping towards the exit, and Scott followed after him like a particularly annoying ghost. “I should have you arrested,” he huffed, pointing an accusatory finger at Rocket Boy as the sound of police sirens drew nearer. “Public nuisance laws are a thing, right? They’re a thing-thing?”

“I dunno, they still let you walk around okay.” Scott said, a picture of wide-eyed innocence that Stiles didn’t buy for a second. He cackled when the speedster shoved at him, floating obnoxiously out of reach before zipping off.

“ _Hey Team, how’d it go with Toy Maker?”_

The Maze Master sounded positively chipper on the other line, and watching a red streak fly across the sky, Stiles had a hard time not feeling the same. “Terrible.” He answered dryly. “Rocket Boy sustained terrible injuries. I think he lost the last of his marbles.”

“What The Stiles means is that the Toy Maker is taking a long time out.”

Mason laughed on the line. “ _You could say this is the end of that toy’s story.”_

“I think it’s time I went solo.” the speedster groaned. The Stiles went in through an alley way, and Stiles came out, complete with civilian sunglasses. Scott wasn’t far behind, clapping him on the shoulder, and maybe Stiles didn’t try as hard as he could have to shake him off.

“ _The girls checked in a while ago. That lead on Doctor Mayhem didn’t pan out, but everything else looks quiet. It looks like the BHPD is cleaning up the rest of the heist, but for now, we’re good.”_

“Just keep us posted. We’ll find him.” Scott didn’t want to give up, but it had been so long since Doctor Mayhem had surfaced, and he was starting to wonder if they’d ever have another shot at him. He needed answers, his powers continued to grow and it was getting harder and harder to control, both in battle and out of it. Scott had to make sure he wore a long sleeved sweatshirt in public these days and sunglasses to hide the flicker of red across his skin. If it got too much worse, he wouldn’t be able to go out in public without everyone else knowing who he was.

If they could just find Doctor Mayhem, he could figure out a way to reverse all of this. Scott flicked off the communicator and jumped on Stiles’s back, almost knocking the other boy off his feet. They tussled for a moment before Stiles slung his arm possessively around Scott’s shoulders.

“You’re such an ass, you think you’re so funny.”

Scott beamed, poking his friend in the ribs until Stiles squirmed. “Yeah, and I can make you laugh until soda comes out of your nose.”

“That only happened once and the bubbles  _burned,_ dude. I’m never going to forgive you.” He dragged Scott down into his armpit in revenge. “We should celebrate, another lame theme-baddie behind bars. You should buy me a pizza.”

“I could do better than that. I wanna show you something that you’ve never seen in your lame-o future. You might have flying cars and robot butlers planning on enslaving humanity, but we’ve got some cool things too.”

“Ooooh.” Stiles’s eyes went wide. “You going to show me some of your hilariously old fashioned movies?”

“Better. I’m taking you to a baseball game.”

Scott wasn’t even all the way through explaining the rules, when Stiles decided he hated it. They’d just gotten comfortable in their seats at Beacon Hills Stadium where the local BH Batters were taking on Midtown’s Bulldogs. It was an AA League match, but for some critics, that wasn’t good enough.

“Dude, what is this?! I could play literally everything all by myself. Don’t even try me, dude. I could go down there right now, and play every position, and those dudes won’t even notice. They’re so  _slow_ I could-”

It had taken Stiles all of two minutes to realize he hated baseball. Scott didn’t even need two seconds to change his mind. With a pleased little grin, he shoved a hot dog straight into his best friend’s hand and turned to the vendor to order a couple of bags of peanuts and drinks to go with it. Scott had never gotten good at taking Mason’s charity, try as the multibillionaire did to claim it was compensation for all his ‘field work,’ but this made it all worth it.

“And dude, they just… Show up? With food?”

“For the most part,” Scott laughed, ridiculously pleased with himself. “And you enjoy the game too. Yes, you  _can_  enjoy the game.”

The speedster wrinkled his nose but didn’t protest. Stiles looked like he’d never seen anything so fascinating in his life. Scott couldn’t help but lean in, just a little. Their elbows knocked together, and he was pointedly aware that Stiles didn’t try to move away.

It was a signal, right? It wasn’t just an accidental touch. Ever since that night in the field all those months ago, Scott felt like something had changed between them. They’d been friends since day one. That part had been easy, but there was a new level of understanding. They could lean against each other late at night in front of the flickering glow of Mason’s television long after everyone else had gone and not say a word.  They’d found a rhythm in their battles, anticipating each other’s moves like they were psychically linked. There was also the touching, little excuses to knock knees together when they sat side by side or how Stiles would casually sling his arm around his shoulders, leaning against his body without even thinking. They’d brush hands, bump shoulders, all the little ways to reassure each other that the other was still right beside them.

It had to mean something, it couldn’t just be an accident. Scott was hyperaware every time they touched and his heart leaped into his throat. It was a risk to mix friendship with something more, but he couldn’t be the only one feeling like this when Stiles was reciprocating every time.

“They’re so slow!” Stiles complained for the umpteenth time, but he was smiling. It was archaic and boring, but the experience seemed like it was more than just what was going on down on the field. The crowd was cheering and yelling every time someone made a play, no one celebrated like that in public anymore and definitely didn’t yell out anything that could be considered criticism. There was a whole innocence to this warm spring day with his mouth stuffed full of hot dog and the boy beside him so proud to show it off.

“Not everything has to be at a thousand miles an hours to be fun.” Scott poked his fingers into his friend’s side. “Maybe everyone where you come from is crazy fast, but sometimes you want to slow down and enjoy things more.”

“Or maybe you old fogeys just can’t keep up?”

Maybe Scott couldn’t keep up, because Stiles’ hand was on his arm, and he squeezed just enough, and Scott forgot how to  _words_. There was always this energy around Stiles, and not just the jittery pulse of constant motion that the speedster was always riding. Everything about him was too sharp and too rough, even when they were laughing, especially when they laughing. It was different now, no less intense, but somehow more at ease. Every time someone made a hit, Stiles’s eyes went comically wide, like he needed to make sure he didn’t miss his cue to cheer with the rest of them. Scott looked away, embarrassed, even if he hadn’t been caught. He’d been spending too much time watching his best friend and not the game. He just picked the worst time to look away. Stiles’s elbow bumped against his.

“You know what I wanna do?” The speedster asked, almost completely out of the blue, but his voice had softened into a husky purr. This was something not meant for the umpire to hear. “Like really, really wanna do? I’ve been thinking about since I saw you but I don’t wanna get hurt. I mean, you’re so hot. I don’t wanna burn myself when I put my mouth on you. I just want to eat you all up, you’re amazing.”

Scott inhaled sharply, and Stiles rolled his tongue.

“I’ll bet you taste so good.”

This was happening. This was really, really happening, and Rocket Boy only knew how to take risks. Stiles had gone quiet, and they’d lost all of two seconds, entire lifetimes to a speedster. Scott couldn’t wait any longer. He _lunged,_ arm around his best friend’s shoulders, dragging him closer into a kiss.

Stiles’ hotdog smacked into his teeth

Stiles choked, hot dog crammed down his throat as Scott sputtered an apology. Holy shit, how had he gotten this so wrong? Stiles was talking to his _hotdog._ Scott was humiliated, swinging his way up over the back of the seat with a muttered “have’ta pee” as Stiles coughed out the last of the hot dog behind him. He didn’t hesitate, throwing himself into the crowd of people so Stiles couldn’t follow.

Why couldn’t his superpower be invisibility? Now would be the perfect time to disappear completely. For one brief second, he thought about hijacking Mason from his latest project and insisting that he fix Stiles’s time machine so he could go back and undue this mess. Of course the speedster had been just joking around, of  _course_  he had. All the “signs” Scott had been agonizing over for weeks were all in his head, the symptoms of an out of control crush that had gotten so large, it finally ruined everything. He flushed hotly, skin so red that it…

_So red_.

Oh god, he was almost glowing with energy like little lightning bolts that spider-webbed across his skin and arched along the ground with every footstep. _Not here, please not here!_ There were too many people around for him to lose control, but he couldn’t stop the pressure building up inside of him like a static charge.

Scott wrapped his arms around himself, barreling through the crowd and looking for an escape. Every beat of his heart felt like it was going to break through his ribs, desperate and terrified of himself. The maintenance room door beside the bathrooms was locked, but a swift kick sent the door banging open and Scott stumbled inside with a low groan. Energy crackled around him, his own personal lightning storm in deep red that left black scorch marks where it struck the concrete walls around him.

Everything was falling apart, and he had no way to stop it. He needed to get as far away from the stadium as possible, before it was too late, but there was no telling what would happen if he tried to use his powers. They crackled across his skin with all the insistent force of a live wire. He couldn’t let anyone get hurt!

“Scott?”

Stiles’s hesitant, worried voice brought him back to the present, so unlike his regular bluster, and Scott whimpered despite his best efforts, trying to put as much distance between them. He cast an eerie red around the maintenance room, like the worst sort of disco ball, and it would’ve been hilarious, if the stands weren’t filled with people.

“You have to get out of here,” Scott warned. His back hit the wall, and he realized with painful certainty that if his powers flared, Stiles would get the brunt of it. “I don’t know what’s happening. Call the team in. Get everyone out, we’ve gotta-”

“Hey, hey, slow down, Scott. Get it? Slow down?” Stiles said, hands raised in a show of surrender. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t control it.” It took all of Scott’s focus to beat back the panic that crept into his voice. “Mason says it’s tied to my emotions, and I-”  _Screwed up big time, made a fool of myself, was the absolute worst._  Most people didn’t have to deal with killing an entire stadium full of people after they’d been shot down.

The speedster blanched, eyes going wide, and Scott breathed a sigh of relief when he took a step back. It didn’t last long. “Dude, you look really, really bad,” he said, and didn’t sound as afraid as he should be. “This reminds me of something I heard, like just for this situation, something a butt cheek said to the other.”

“Stiles,” Scott insisted plaintively, but his best friend just held his hands up higher.

“Together, we can stop this shit.”

Scott gave a dry wheeze that could almost have been a laugh and Stiles seized on it like it was a triumph. He scrambled for more material, pulling out his A-game like his life depended on it. “You’re as red as a tomato, Scotty. You know why the tomato was red, right? He saw the salad dressing.”

“Stiles…” He groaned in pain as the speedster took another step closer. “You can’t-, I can’t stop it.”

“You’re going to be okay, dude. Just breathe, it’ll be fine. You’re already loads better than that guy in a horrible accident who lost his entire left side.”

Scott looked pained, shaking his head as Stiles closed the distance between them. The red energy dimmed, the flickering storm calming. “Don’t.”

“He’s  _all right_  now, just like you’ll be. All right, cuz he lost his left side?” Shaking hands wrapped around Scott’s and Stiles shivered as the energy raced up his arms and burned through his veins in a familiar agony. “Scott, I have to ask you a serious question. Do you know why you never hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom? Because the  _p_  is silent.”

Stiles gave him such an earnest look that could couldn’t help but laugh, the dangerous glow snuffing out in an instant to leave them both in semi-darkness. His friend’s hand was warm around his, a lifeline back to humanity that pulled him away from the edge. Slowly, the coil of energy held tight in his body began to unwind, the ticking time bomb defused by a bad joke and a set of trembling fingers. “I’m sorry.” He murmured and his best friend whispered back.

“Hi sorry, I’m Stiles.”

Scott hiccupped and laughed. It was mostly a good thing. He didn’t know if he moved first or if Stiles did, but they came together too quickly, just missing each other’s heads by an inch as they hugged like their lives depended on it.

“Why are you this way?” Scott gurgled appreciatively. He made his best friend laugh, too.

“You’re short enough that most of it goes over your head.”

Scott leaned in closer, but Stiles tucked him under his chin, holding him tight like he was afraid he would disappear. His nerves sang and his blood boiled. Then Rocket Boy’s power began to fade. It was slow going. That was okay. Scott couldn’t think of anywhere he would rather be.

It was an age before they pulled away.

Scott’s skin prickled where Stiles had touched him, but the speedster was beaming down at him so proudly. “You okay there, dude?”

Scott missed his chance to reply.

“Hey! What are you kids doing down here!? This place is off limits! Who let you down here?” The maintenance worker hurried into the room. Both heroes tripped over one another to get to their feet, shame-faced and guilty. 

“It was unlocked?” Scott tried, but every lie went out the window when Stiles grabbed his hand and tangled their fingers together. The speedster had to drag him out of the room. Scott was too busy staring at how well they fit. They ran, and they didn’t stop until the room was a floor away. Stiles didn’t let go of his hand, not even once. 

Something on diamond did had the crowd going wild. Scott was half-convinced that was just his racing heart. “So, um… Should we get back to the game?”

Maybe there was a way to salvage this horrible day and when Stiles squeezed his hand back encouragingly, the young hero gave a relieved smile. If Stiles could help him find it, he might even find a way to control his powers. He wasn’t going to have to go through this alone, he had a best friend who could help him face down crisis with a stupid fart joke or two.

“Yeah, I-”

“ _Rocket. Stiles_.” Mason’s voice cut in and both boys sprang apart like they’d been caught doing more than just holding hands. It took Scott a moment before he realized the Maze Master was talking over their communicators and shot his best friend one guilty look before he tapped back to reply.

“What’s going on?”

“Lydia, she’s awake. We need you back right away, you’re going to want to see this.”


	9. Chapter 9

Wrapped tight in a fuzzy blanket, she looked tired and worn, pale beneath her snarled red hair. The wild animal panic in Lydia’s eyes had faded, but she still looked nervous as she faced a room full of superheroes. “What happened to me?”

“You were taken,” Scott said, taking a tentative step closer. Lydia stared at him for a long time, long enough for it to be awkward before permitting him closer with the tiniest nods. They’d have to get Natalie Martin on the line soon. Beacon Hill’s mayor made frequent visits to her daughter’s bed side. Mason handled it. The rest of the team just made sure not to be around. Her confidence in them was less than sound, especially after they’d brought back the unfortunate news of the other victims, but the Hewitt Corporation guaranteed that Lydia had the best health care that money could buy. “Kidnapped after school, about - a few months ago, actually. Do you remember anything?”

Lydia flinched, before her eyes narrowed into slits and she tightened her grip on the inside of her blanket. “No. Who was it? Why, what did they want from me?”

Scott caught the uptake in her pulse, but she held up her head defiantly. “We were hoping you could help us answer that. Your kidnapper calls himself Doctor Mayhem, and…” He exchanged a quick look with Mason. “We have reason to believe he did something to you, to try and make you someone like us.”

The disbelief in Lydia’s eyes spoke volumes, even as she pressed her lips into a thin line.

Scott took a step closer, a calming presence even when he felt like panicking. “It’s going to be okay. Whatever happened, we’re going to help you get through it.”

The girl shook her head, pressing the heels of her hands against her temples. “I can hear things.” She whispered, expression twisting as she tried to sort through her suspicions. “Something terrible is coming.”

The heroes exchanged a worried look as Scott carefully sat on the edge of the bed. “Lydia, what’s coming?”

Trembling hands knotted together, twisting hard until Scott wrapped one warm hand across them. She looked up, searching for a promise in dark brown eyes and seemed to find what she needed to go home. With a deep breath, she leaned against the other boy like they could share strength between them. There was a faint prickle where they touched, the same energy recognizing itself. They were connected in some way, made by the same monster.

“My name is Scott. My real name.” The hero gestured to their small group. ”Mason, Malia, Stiles, and Kira. I know that it’s scary, but what he did to you don’t change who you are. We’re going to find him and we’re going to stop him.”

“Can you undo it? I mean, what he did to me. If you catch him, can you undo it all?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll try.”

There was steel in her veins. There was nothing frail about Lydia Martin. Rage burned through her, a righteous indignation that was so much more than the shame or the fear. “I’m going to help you find him.”

Lydia inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. When she looked back at them, it was with determination. “I thought it was a nightmare.”

Whatever Doctor Mayhem had done to her had given her visions, terrible whispers about a future burned red and held in an iron grip. She could never see the man’s face, but the world bowed at his feet. Stiles felt his heart plummet down to his feet.  _The Autarch_.

“He walked on fire.” By the end of her story, her shoulders sagged with exhaustion and Lydia slumped against the wall, a pillow tucked under her arm. Once she’d started speaking, the details became clearer and clearer, like she’d spent her months asleep practicing for the chance to tell her tale. Everyone listened, completely entranced. Lydia only stopped to take sips of water. When she got to the end of her glass, Stiles zipped out of the room and returned with a refill before the water had time to settle, handing it over easily, and Lydia gasped. The glass fell from her fingers, and had it been anyone else but Stiles, it would have shattered.

“I saw you,” she breathed, barely above a whisper, eyes widening in horrified fascination. “The runner. You were there. You were…”

Stiles froze, like a deer caught in the headlights, and Scott couldn’t stop himself from reaching out. His best friend turned into him without having to think twice, and the panic in his face faded. When Stiles told him that the future he came from had its trouble, Scott had no idea how bleak the situation was, but the cruel truth was carved across Stiles’s face.

“It’s true,” Stiles said, his voice gravel-rough, but his back was ram-rod straight. His hand curled around Scott’s, almost like he was trying to break it, but he fought at every point to make sure his voice remained firm. “Everything you said. The battle at Laguna, Olympus Sanitarium… That man. That…”

His hand started to shake. The faintest flicks of red jumped where they touched, but Stiles never pulled away. “We call him the Autarch. And he’s unstoppable.”

Malia folded her arms across her chest. “This Autarch is some kind of dictator?”

“Worse.” Stiles should stop the shiver that crawled down his spine. “There are no governments, there are no countries, it’s all just the Autarch. People fought against him when he first rose to power, but nothing was strong enough to stop him. Now, most people don’t even try to fight. They give everything to him and swear their loyalty, and they’re rewarded with peace. Most people do because they’re afraid. He’s always watching. He’s everywhere, and I don’t mean just his tech. Anyone who disagrees…” His voice trailed off, swallowing hard.

It was worse than even Lydia’s visions. The Autarch had brought the world together, but the cost had been high. By the time Stiles was born, almost everyone had submitted to his rule. They all remembered what it was like when the Autarch had scorched entire armies from the face of the earth. Destroying war once and for all meant destroying anyone who raised a weapon against him.

“He broke them down, turned people into his enforcers. Turned me. I came back to make sure that my future would never happen.”

“Oh, dude.” Scott didn’t even hesitate, wrapping his arms around his best friend like he could shield Stiles from the ghosts of his future. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Scott felt Stiles tense, then the speedster went boneless in his arms, inching his way closer until there was no closer left. Scott didn’t know how they had gone so long without trying this.

“I didn’t want you to know?” Stiles said around a bitter laugh. He pulled away reluctantly, but his hands stayed fisted in Scott’s shirt as he addressed the room. The team had never seen him so serious. “There was a chance telling you all would destroy the time stream as we know it, but that hasn’t happened yet. So I guess we’re lucky. We were desperate. This was our last chance at fighting back, and… And if there’s anyone who could help, we thought it would be you guys. You are, you will be, some of the best legends the world’s ever known.”

Stunned silence greeted that revelation. Malia was the first to break it. “Are we all dead where you’re from? Is that why you had to come back here to get us to help?”

Stiles’s silence gave them all the answer they needed. Mason sat down heavily as Malia put a protective arm around Kira. “When?” Maze Master croaked. “How long do we have?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to stop it. That’s why I came back, you have to believe me. We can change this. After seeing the way you work together, I know we can do this.”

“And Doctor Mayhem is somehow connected to this? He’s the one who gave Lydia her visions.”

Stiles nodded shakily, wishing he could just keep himself in the warm, protective circle of Scott’s arms and let the rest of the world sort itself out. “Doctor Mayhem must have started all of this. If we stop him, then the Autarch won’t have a chance to take over. We can save everyone.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” Scott always managed to have unwavering faith in his team no matter the odds. They wouldn’t fail because they  _couldn’t_  with too much on the line. A future where millions died and an evil dictator twisted people into superpowered slaves. Someone who’d probably put Stiles through hell. “We’re going to stop him.”

When Scott talked like that, even Stiles believed him.

They fanned out of the rooms in pairs, each caught in their own troubles and leaving Lydia to her privacy. Scott didn’t wait for them to leave before turning to his best friend. Something like an apology caught his tongue. He was sorry for everything Stiles had been through, sorry he’d had to lie to them for so long, sorry that he was going through this all alone, but Stiles squeezed it out of him with a too-tight hug that left Scott breathless.

“Dude.” Stiles started, but Scott shook his head and tightened his hold around his waist, embracing the speedster as tightly as he could manage. It made Stiles sigh against his shoulder, and Scott shivered when Stiles rubbed his cheek against his shirt. “You guys…” He tried once more, but his voice broke embarrassingly. Stiles had to laugh. “Just like that? You’re going to help me just like that?”

“Of course, Stiles.” Scott said vehemently, tone soft but earnest. “You’re part of the team. Besides… Saving the world’s what we do.” His best friend laughed, just like Scott wanted him to, and red sparks crackled at his fingertips. Maybe when this was all done, he could ask Stiles to stay. 

Stiles wasn’t going to make it easy for him. “We gonna talk about you and my hotdog now?”

Scott flushed, a crackle of red energy ghosting over his skin as he tried to back-peddle. “It’s nothing, I was just hungry. Can we drop it now, dude?”

Stiles didn’t let go, keeping his grip around his best friend to keep Scott from trying to escape. They were too close, he could feel the other boy’s body heat and the way his pulse sped beneath his hands. It was almost exhilarating that _The_  Rocket Boy was so off balance and awkward in his arms. “I almost choked to death, I think you should tell me the truth.”

“C’mon.” Even the most determined wiggle didn’t get him free, but Scott couldn’t look Stiles in the eye. His voice cracked, glow rising around him like the air itself was blushing. “I screwed up, just forget it.” It was as close to admitting his mistake as he could get. How could he put the rest into words? He’d lose everything if he crossed that line, it wasn’t worth the risk. 

“You looked like you were going to  _kiss_ me.” Stiles mocked in a sing song and was rewarded when the other boy looked up at him with panic in his eyes. He’d only meant to tease, he hadn’t realized Scott was actually afraid of it. Maybe they both should have been, the key to fixing his miserable life was right here in his arms. His target and his best friend, the one who could give him everything back, who could save his family, save Kira just by dying… and all Stiles wanted to do was make him smile again. 

“I wasn’t, can you just let me go?” Scott pleaded. 

“What if I want you to?”

That was enough to freeze Scott against him. This was probably messed up in some way. There was so much Scott didn’t know, so much Stiles could do to ruin him, but Stiles couldn’t worry about his nightmare world in this boy. It was Scott he cared about, Mr. Honor and Compassion who killed himself to save others. The boy with the plush lips just begging to be licked open, the tight, compact body that responded as he dragged his fingers down Scott’s back. His Scott.

“You’re not what I thought you were going to be.” The speedster whispered the words against Scott’s mouth, barely touching as his friend stood stock still. “I thought I knew, but everything was wrong. Why are you so good?”

“I’m not,” Scott protested as well as he could, but his efforts were distracted at best by the way Stiles dragged his fingers across his skin. 

“Good.” Stiles dared, full of reckless bravado as he cupped Scott’s chin between his fingers, drawing him in closer still. “I’m counting on it.”

Scott kissed him first. Each touch was electric, crackling between them like a live wire that set Scott’s skin blazing. The heat burned through his veins, boiling his blood until it was all he knew, and Stiles moaned into his mouth, sloppy and eager and so much more demanding than either of them knew what to do with.

Scott spent so much time thinking about this. In his fantasies they were always sweet, and careful, and ever so clumsy. They would probably be gross and shy. Scott had never kissed another boy, before, and he wanted to be good at it, good enough that Stiles wouldn’t laugh at him. Stiles wasn’t laughing now, and Scott felt like flying. It was messy and hurried and Stiles kept biting his lip and Scott used too much tongue, but it was perfect. So absolutely perfect.

Scott pulled away, gasping for air. His cheeks were flushed and sweat broke out across his brow and down his clammy hands. Stiles stoked a fever through him. Stiles didn’t look any better, his cheeks a ruddy, splotchy red like it always got when he was yelling at the TV for too long. His eyes were unfocused and mouth obscenely wet, and Scott could hear his pulse racing like his heart wanted to jump out of his chest. He cupped his cheek, dimly aware that flashes of red jolted between them. Then Stiles’s face slacked, his eyes going wide in dumb horror, and his entire body spasmed.

“STILES!”

Scott caught the other boy as Stiles jerked in his arms, eyes rolling back in his head. Every muscle in the speedster’s body corded tight like he was in agony, mouth caught open in a silent scream as he seized. It was all Scott could do to wrestle him down to the floor, shouting for Mason at the top of his lungs. “H-hang on, just hang on Stiles. Help is coming!”


	10. Chapter 10

“Will you go sit down? You’re hovering.” Mason muttered as Scott slunk back to the chair in the corner of the medical bay. Their resident genius had Stiles sedated on a bad in the infirmary, in case he seized again. A host of machines beeped and hummed at an alarming speed, connected by sticky electrodes to Stiles’s skin. Mason had been working for hours, taking readings with a worrying frown as Scott perched nearby, never leaving his best friend’s side.

“Is he going to be okay?”

Mason sighed and rubbed a tired hand across his face. Scott asked the same question every ten minutes for the past two hours. “I don’t know, I think so? I’ve never seen physiology like this before, Scott. If I got these readings from anyone else, I’d say they’d be dying. I have no idea how he can maintain this metabolism, I’ve had to up the medication just to keep him asleep and I don’t know how his heart hasn’t given out yet. Whatever changed in him is remarkable.”

“Yeah, but what happened?” Scott tried to drag Mason back from his scientific curiosity. “He was fine one minute and then the next, he was having a seizure out of nowhere.”

“What was he doing right before that?”

Scott flushed and snapped his mouth shut. “Nothing.” He muttered. “Nothing dangerous!”

The genius pointed to one of the machines flickering wildly. “It’s like he was overloaded, like charging a battery until it bursts. I can’t explain it, but I’m picking up too much of your energy in his readings and it’s like he shorted out.”

And just like that, everything came to a screeching halt. Scott’s expression crumbled. He never even suspected it, driven by fear and concern and the lingering memories of how good it had felt to be wanted by someone he cared about. He was the one who put Stiles here, and they had no way of knowing if he was going to get better. Mason was going into great detail about a hypothesis he had regarding mitochondria, the power house of the cell, but Scott couldn’t follow if his life depended on it.

“I was with him.” Scott said softly, cutting him off with barely a whisper. “I did this. I must’ve lost control because…”  _I was happy. I was so happy, and he liked me back._  The young hero felt sick to his stomach. He’d endangered Stiles’s life because of his own recklessness. He should have realized sooner. There had been so many signs, and Stiles was going to pay because Scott had been selfish. 

“Can you control it? The energy in him?” Mason asked tentatively. “Scott, it was an accident. We can fix this.”

Scott blanched in horror. It was too easy to bring back memories of that night, with Doctor Mayhem’s influence whispering in his ears. Even if he could never catch him, he’d stopped the speedster like it was nothing, turned his body against him in the worst sort of ways. It made him sick. Mason was wrong. This was all on him, and this time, he didn’t even have Doctor Mayhem to blame. “I don’t know how.”

Mason’s expression was unreadable, the genius the first to put all the pieces together. The picture of the speedster was a whole lot uglier than he wanted to admit, but the proof was right there in the machines and facts didn’t lie. “Scott, there’s a chance we got everything wrong about him. If his power is so similar to yours-”

“No.” Scott’s denial was harsh and Mason took an involuntary step back.

“We have to at least consider he’s working for Doctor Mayhem.” Mason wasn’t going to let this go, even if his leader didn’t want to think that Stiles was a traitor. “He shows up out of nowhere, lies about where he’s from, knows everything about us, and his power is linked to yours? What if he’s another one of Doctor Mayhem’s creations? It makes  _sense_.”

“No, it doesn’t.” He pointed at the prone figure on the bed, eyes flashing an angry red. “Stiles has put himself on the line with us over and over again. If he was working for Doctor Mayhem, he wouldn’t be lying there. He never would have let me hurt him like that.”

“Okay, fine.” Mason held up his hands in surrender. “If you’re sure you can trust him.”

“I’m sure of him.”

“You want me to tell you when he wakes up?”

Scott shook his head and plopped down on the chair beside Stiles’s bed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

 

Scott was flying. Rushing towards a red sky like no other he’d ever seen, but the grey walls that spread on either side of him reached out to touch it. They rushed past him, in what direction he couldn’t be sure, and Scott was chasing something. Being chased. It was impossible to tell when power bled into power and blurred the lines between him and his enemy. He wanted to stop it. It wanted… More, more power, more control, more _him._  Scott didn’t know how he was going to defeat it, but he wouldn’t let it win, wouldn’t let it drag him under. He went faster and faster and faster, but the sky danced eternally out of reach because he wasn’t flying. He was falling, and Rocket Boy was falling with him.

“Easy! Easy.”

Kira’s voice cut through his sleep like a knife, shooing away the vestiges of his dream world. The ache in his nape brought him back to reality. Tempest offered him a slow smile, squeezing one of his shoulders, and beneath Scott’s butt, his plastic chair remained as hard and uncomfortable as ever. “Scott?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” he grumbled, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I just fell asleep. What’s up?”

Kira started kneading the spot beneath her hand, and Scott could have groaned in relief. He sagged against her, letting out a ridiculously grateful sigh. “I brought you the last egg roll. Malia and I are heading home, but there are leftovers in the fridge.”

“Yeah… I’ll grab that. Thanks.”

“I mean it, Scott.” She said. “It’s been two days. You should eat a proper meal.” 

And beside them, Stiles’s vitals remained steady.

She didn’t want to leave him, but Scott gave her his best encouraging smile and she shook his head. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’ll be fine.” Scott shook off her concern, turning back to the motionless boy on the bed. “You two go on. I’ll hold down the fort and I promise I’ll eat something. I’m okay, I promise.”

Kira could hear the hollowness to his words, but she didn’t push him. When he was hurting, Scott threw up his walls and didn’t let anyone close. She knew that he thought he had to be strong for their sake, but everyone was allowed a moment of weakness. The heroine squeezed Scott’s shoulder, hand lingering even when he flinched away from her touch. “You’d better or I’ll have Malia be the one to remind you next time. She’ll just sit on you until you eat.”

With a chuckle, Scott waved at her to go. “I will, I will.” He listened as she turned away, hesitating in the doorway before finally leaving. As soon as she was gone, the boy leaned tiredly against Stiles’s bed like his batteries had finally run down. He was going to have to get something to eat, he couldn’t remember his last meal. Anything that took him away from Stiles’s side wasn’t worth it.

Scott reached out, hovering over the speedster’s hand without touching the other boy. His touch was poison, he couldn’t even get close enough to hold Stiles’s hand. A small spark of red jumped between his fingers to the Stiles’s skin and he jerked back, already apologizing even though there was no one there to hear him.

“Please wake up?” Scott’s voice was gravely and thick, swallowing too many words he didn’t know how to say. He rested his head in his hands, shoulders hunched as if he could make himself small enough to disappear. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know. I just wanted to, I just…” Stupid. After everything he’d done to try and pretend he was a hero, the truth was written in his very DNA. He was made to hurt people, even when he tried so hard not to. He was just like Peter.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You will be sorry if you don’t get me to a bathroom before I burst.”

“Stiles?” Scott could barely believe his ears, jolting out of his chair so fast he nearly knocked it over. The speedster looked up at him with a shaky grin, features ashen and eyes caked with gunk, but awake and so happy to see him.

“That’s  _The_ Stiles to you.” His voice came out in an unsteady croak, but that didn’t stop Stiles from running his mouth. “I’m not kidding, dude. I need to pee. I really really need to pee like I haven’t peed in a year. What’s going on? I feel like I ran into a wall.”

Scott laughed and launched himself at the other boy, heart pounding in his chest so loudly, he was sure it would give out. He stopped himself in time, just before he could pull Stiles into a hug. The confusion on his best friend’s face made him feel all of two feet tall. “I should call Mason,” he said, taking a careful step back. Scott had to look away as the expression on Stiles’ face turned accusatory. “Guess you guys aren’t really big on the whole kissing thing in the future, huh?”

“Whaddya mean, we love kissing? Kissing all the time. Lots of making out, it’s like the national pastime.” Stiles winced as he swung his legs over the bed and tried to wobble to his feet. Scott curled his hands into fists, crossing his arms over his chest to keep from helping. They’d learned their lesson, they couldn’t touch anymore. The speedster gave him an annoyed look as he limped his way to the bathroom and then back to the bed a few minutes later.

“Holy shit, did Tempest hit me with a bolt of lightning?” He groaned, flopping back in bed. “I feel like I licked an electrical socket.”

Scott flushed, pulling the chair closer to the edge of the bed with a scream of metal across the tiled floor and sat down heavily. “Not exactly. Are you feeling okay? I really should let Mason know you’re awake.”

“Nah, just fill me in first. Why am I laying around in a hospital dress with my ass hanging out and a bladder that was about to burst?”

“You don’t remember?” Scott looked up at the other boy, dark eyes so worried that it made Stiles pause. His aching head didn’t want to cooperate, but he tried to sort through his scrambled thoughts and pick out which were the most recent. 

“I remember we were hanging out.”

“Yeah, we, it was more than hanging out. My power made you sick, dude. I thought you were gonna die, everyone was worried. You’ve been out of it for two days without waking up, it was like you were in a coma and-”

“YOU KISSED ME!” Stiles leveled a triumphant finger at Scott’s nose and blinked, a delighted and awestruck smile flashing across his face. “You kissed me.” He said again, almost reverently.

The worst part was Scott wanted to kiss him again. He wanted to gather Stiles into his arms, knowing full well that that the speedster would only go kicking and screaming, and bend him over like a Disney princess, and kiss his superfast brains out. But Scott knew that the last part was more literal than figurative in their case.

“I also made you really sick, Stiles.” He’d meant to play it off as some kind of joke. Scott wasn’t sure what kind, but he had a rough idea of aiming for something charming and nonchalant. If the worry on Stiles’s face was anything to go by, he wasn’t doing a great job. “Mason said I overloaded your batteries or something, like when Doctor Mayhem…”

He trailed off, sure that Stiles knew exactly what Doctor Mayhem did to them both.

“Well, maybe we should try again,” Stiles started, voice stubbornly chipper as he took a step closer. He scowled when Scott took a matching one backwards, and something like a grunt caught in the back of his throat. This wasn’t right. Things had finally been going to well. Scott was the only person who could make him laugh like his sides were splitting, and Stiles had finally, finally found a way to make this all better. They had a plan. He didn’t have to be just another one of the Autarch’s failed experiments. He could finally be normal. “Maybe we should try it upside down, try to match the positive ends with the negative ends, like a battery, you know?”

“Stiles! Didn’t you hear what I said?” Scott protested, a frantic edge creeping into his tone because he couldn’t understand how Stiles was taking this so glibly. The look on his best friend’s face stopped him before he could find the words to argue.

“I did, and I don’t care.” Stiles said, crowding into Scott’s space even as the other boy looked for a way to escape. “You’re the only one who ever understood, dude. All the things I’ve been through, how lonely it makes you feel and how lost. I look at you and you’ve turned all of that into something amazing and I…you’re so much more than I ever expected. And I trust you. God, I trust you…”

Scott wasn’t convinced, and suddenly, Stiles looked determined, the way he did when a battle got tough, and someone needed to make a hard choice.

“I trust you with me… I trust you with all with _everything_ …” Stiles insisted, but he still swallowed thickly, squaring his shoulders to look Scott in the eye. This was his proof, to both of them, Scott realized, and he wasn’t prepared. “I came back in time to stop the Autarch, to kill him before he could become a monster, but the guy I know could never be a monster. And I can’t hurt one of the best heroes I’ve ever known.”

Everything ground to a stop, veins plunged in ice. The ground had been ripped out from under him and he was free-falling, spiraling down into a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. “No.” He whispered, unable to form words other than the one whispered plea.

“I never wanted you to know, Scott.” Stiles had enough words for the both of them, trying to fill in the cracks before the damage spread. “Something changed you. I thought I was coming back to stop you, but after I met the real you, I knew I had to save you.”

“This is all my fault?” He held out one hand and a crackle of red energy crackled along his fingertips, trying to reach out to Stiles. The monster who destroyed the future, the one who tortured Stiles, it wasn’t Doctor Mayhem, it was _him_. At the end, he couldn’t stop himself from being a monster.

“No,” Stiles insisted. He closed his hand over Scott’s, and Scott felt a rush of force twist between them. It hurt Stiles. He knew that as well as he knew his own name, but the speedster stared at him with stubborn intent and refused to go, even when Scott tried to pull away. “The Autarch wasn’t you. He could never be you.”

Scott wished so badly that he could believe him. Stiles’s hand was gentle as it brushed across his cheek, but Scott had to fight for control of his powers as his heart thundered in his chest.

“But he will be,” Scott whispered, but the speedster refused to be talked down.

“Maybe, maybe someday, but never in any world where I’ve got you. I won’t let it happen.” Stiles’s brows furrowed. Scott didn’t know what he found on his face, but it was enough for Stiles to lean in with uncharacteristic care and kiss the knuckles of Scott’s hand. He could make Scott believe that everything was going to be all right, even as proof of Scott’s cruelty was laid out before him. “You’re my best friend, Scott. You’re the only friend I’ve ever had… And now that you know, you won’t let it happen too, Scott.”

The young hero jerked away like he’d been burned and fled before the speedster had time to recover. He heard his name called out behind him, but Stiles was hurt and too slow to catch him as he raced through their headquarters in a streak of red light. Up and up through the winding staircase until he burst out on the roof like he could escape the truth that nipped at his heals.

_He was the Autarch. He ruined the world_.

“Scott, wait!” Stiles wheezed, still fast enough to make it just heart beats behind his friend but Scott didn’t even hesitate as he threw himself into the sky.

Rocket Boy streaked upwards, blazing upwards as if he could slip gravity itself and escape himself. His pulse beat in his ears, the same word over and over again. Monster.  _Monster_. After everything he’d done and all he’d tried to help people, there was no fighting what he was inside. Scott screamed his rage at the sky, blue fading to a star-studded black as he reached the edge of the atmosphere. It was a wordless, silent scream, tears frozen on his cheeks as he was held at the very limits of space.

The earth stretched out below him, beautiful and calm in swirls of white and blue. It all looked so perfect from here and the red energy around him flickered out, intense cold biting into his skin. Maybe he could just stay here, let it freeze himself solid until he couldn’t feel anything anymore.

He didn’t know how long he lingered there, mind wandering as numbness set in. Scott was lulled by the quiet beat of his own heart, tracking its steady progress as it slowed. Part of him wondered what he would do if it stopped. Part of him welcomed the chance. He had to work for every breath. The air was thin, and cold enough to burn his nose as he inhaled. Humans weren’t meant to survive so high, but Scott didn’t need any more proof that he wasn’t one of them.

There was a crack of static in his head, and for a moment, Scott was convinced he was imagining things. Then a familiar voice spoke through.

“Rocket Boy? Scott? You there?” Not even the best of Mason’s technology couldn’t clear the signal. Stiles was so far away, and it was too easy for Scott to close his eyes and drift even further. He should have destroyed his communicator, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn it off.

“I know you can hear me.” Stiles said, but his voice held none of the confidence he promised. “The little red thing on Mason’s dash keeps blinking… I just want you I don’t blame you for any of it… We’re worried about you buddy. Maybe me more than most, and everyone’s already worrying a whole lot.”

Scott thought about going further, pushing just enough to let space swallow him whole. Doctor Mayhem had infected him and no matter how he resisted, the poison would take him in the end. The whole world would pay that price. When he poke, his voice trembled. “I only wanted to help people, Stiles. I never wanted any of this, but I finally thought I was doing the right thing.” 

“You helped me. That counts for something. My whole life, I was just looking for a way to make it stop, but you’re the one who showed me that things could be different. We could start something new!” Stiles wasn’t ready to give up, squeezing his best friend’s hand despite the pain. “Doctor Mayhem did this, not you. We’re going to stop him together because we’re a team. You told me that.”

“Will that be enough?” Scott asked softly. “What about you? I’m the thing that hurt you, I made you into this just like what he did to me. You were going to kill me. You’re going to be okay with this…? I don’t want you to be scared of me.”

“You’re just human, dude. You’re a hero. Maybe all you need is someone to remind you of that.” Stiles dropped his hand and tried not to rub his tingling fingers on his thigh to break the charge. “We’re going to kick this guy’s ass and change the future, ‘cuz I really want to make out with your stupid face again. Scott, you have to come down.”

There was a resignation in Stiles’s words that Scott almost wished he could shake out of him, especially when he made such terrible promises. Worst still, it was laced with something brutally hopeful. Scott never wanted to be the one who let him down. “Or I’m going to find a way up there, and I’ll bring you home myself.”

“Just let me go, Stiles.” The words were whispered and swallowed up by the silent space.

“Never.” Stiles’s reply came back sharply enough to make Rocket Boy jump. “I am never giving up on you, you hear me? Forget the rest of the world or what you think might happen, you’re too important to  _me_. I am not going to lose you, Scott. Not after I had to tear apart space and time to find you. You’re my best friend, you got that? I will find a way to stop this.”

“What if you can’t?”

“I won’t accept that.”

It was a promise, irrefutable in its simplicity, and it hung between them, as heavily as any threat. Scott closed his eyes, but even then, he could imagine Stiles, his mouth twisted into a grim, stubborn frown. His best friend.

Scott was so tired of fighting. Letting go would be easy and he could make sure that it all just stopped. No Autarch, no terrible future, no one hurting Stiles. If they failed, then everyone would suffer and Scott would become a monster he couldn’t recognize. But Stiles had faith in him, even after seeing what the Autarch could do. That had to mean something.

Maybe there was a chance? With a quiet sigh, Scott let himself fall, streaking back towards earth in a halo of fire like a shooting star. “Okay.”

* * *

 

Stiles was on him before he touched the ground.

“Stiles.” Scott swallowed thickly, trying to look anywhere but his best friend. It was impossible when Stiles pulled him into a tight embrace, ignoring how warm his suit was from the descent. Their knees knocked, hips bumped. “I’m… Scared. You’re still in a gown.”

“I know!” The speedster laughed, so bright and easy that Scott was forced to look up. “My butt is hanging out and everything, but I know, I know I really want to kiss you again. I know it so damn much that I’m going to do it right now?”

“Stiles, wait-” Scott tried to protest, but Stiles shook his head so fast, his face blurred.

“Nope. I’m going to do it. Right now. Right now.”

Scott gasped, hands balled into fists in front of him, biting on the inside of his cheek, but Stiles closed his eyes and leaned in closer. It wasn’t a kiss. It barely counted as one. Their lips brushed for the barest of seconds, before they both jerked away. It was the best kiss Scott ever had.

Stiles was the first to break their silence. “I meant it. I meant every word. Look me right in the eye and-, wait. Let me get you a step stool first because you’re so short.”

The hero burst out laughing, scrubbing his hands over his face, trying to hide his smile. He blushed all the way down his neck, embarrassed and horrified because he was still scared. They both were, but they were going to be scared and reckless together.


	11. Chapter 11

“Is this really how you plan all of your missions? It’s kind of a miracle you all survive.” Lydia said, looking around the room at the gathered heroes. She had decided to stay, throwing herself into helping the team instead of going home to her family. There was always something to do, whether it be a plan to settle or more training to tackle. She was always on the move. Scott thought that she was afraid to go back. She’d been changed, she’d never be the same again. He knew exactly how she felt and why she wanted to make a difference.

“I think I like Sage,” she said, when Mason had shown her the first prototype for her costume. “And if Stiles suggests ‘Banshee’ one last time, I’ll clock him.”

They sat around the big table in their main briefing room, a three dimensional map of the city pulled up on the screen in front of them. “Usually, we’re a whole lot less prepared than this, so it’s an upgrade.” Scott said with a smile as Mason looked appalled.

“Hey, I come up with some good ideas!”

“You come up with some complicated impossible to understand ideas and the rest of us handle the punching.” Malia snorted, turning her attention back on the map. “So you’re looking for footprints.”

“Something like that. Lydia and I have been combing the city and splicing what her visions tell her of Doctor Mayhem’s equipment, so we can potentially isolate energy signatures within the calibrated range to-”

“ _Fancy_  footprints.” Malia amended, looking painfully unimpressed, and Mason had the decency to blush. He cleared his throat shyly before zooming the camera in closer over the city, highlighting an underground structure beneath the baseball stadium. 

“I’ve managed to track some weird surges there, like - like Scott’s there right now, with temporal readings underground here. I thought it was just echoes or a glitch in the machine at first, but they’re real. With Lydia’s help, we uncovered a system of tunnels underneath the stadium.”

“But I’m right here, promise.” Scott said, smiling gamely, until Stiles jabbed him in the nipple and he gasped, scandalized.

“Yup, it’s really him.” The speedster provided, oblivious to Scott’s glower.

Kira smiled at them indulgently, before leaning over to ask. “Weird temporal readings? Like time travel stuff?”

“I was down there before, do you think that did it?” Stiles asked, giving Scott a quick almost embarrassed look. No one needed to know about the little meltdown at the ball park.

“Maybe. I still don’t understand everything about how your powers work, so you might have left something behind, and Scott’s been…” Mason trailed off diplomatically. “Whatever it is, I think that there’s something going on down there and it’s big.”

“Yeah, it’s called the Cyclones versus the Patriots.” Malia grumbled under her breath, but she ground her fist into her palm, a viciously pleased smile crossing her features. It was no secret that the shapeshifter had been spoiling for another round with Doctor Mayhem. 

“Hold on.” Lydia said, holding up a manicured hand, but it was hard to tell if she wanted to stop them from talking or if she was just trying to stop herself from doing something she might regret. “Your plan is to charge his lair? From what you tell me, the last time you did that, he wiped the floor with you.”

“It’ll be different this time.” Scott reassured her, even as Kira and Stiles exchanged pointed looks, and Mason shuffled. When the genius did that, he looked almost as young as he really was. “I have a plan.”

* * *

 

The ballpark was empty when The Pack – minus a couple – crept in. The shadows that greeted them seemed too long and the silence too thick. Ms. Monster didn’t like it. It was only her and Sage, and she couldn’t help but jump at every noise that echoed through the stands. They were being monitored, she could feel it and the hair on the back of her neck prickled. “Are you sure about this?”

“ _As sure as I can be.”_ Mason said into her earpiece. “ _Everything was calibrated for Rocket Boy, if Doctor Mayhem’s powers are as similar as we think, it should work.”_

“’Should’ leaves a lot of room for interpretation, Maze Master.” She grumbled. She didn’t get much more out. Beside her, Sage held her hands out in front of her with a sudden gasp. Her eyes went white as a vision struck and Malia took a step backwards in surprise. Whatever she was seeing seemed violent and the young redhead shook with the effort. Lydia dragged a breath into her lungs, the past, present, and future crashing through her in a wave as she opened herself up to its influence and grimly hung on with all of her strength.

And then she screamed.

The sound seemed to distort reality, amplifying louder than what should have been possible. Ms. Monster dropped to her knees with her hands pressed over her ears as the stadium caught Lydia’s voice and howled it back at them. The air trembled with the strength as she unleashed her fury and her pain at the visions that crowded into her head.

With a groan, Lydia collapsed on the grass of the baseball field and the scream slowly died away into an unnatural silence as if the world was holding its breath.

“That’s one way to get my attention.” Peter slid into the silence like a knife. “You could have just called.”

“ _You_ ,” she spat, venom dripping from her tongue. A thunderous fury twisted Lydia’s features, cutting across her face and leaving thick lines in its path as she stared down her attacker. Her legs felt like jello, her strength dispersed to the wind like the last echo of her scream, but she was proud and brave, terrified but determined in every way that counted. 

“Me.” Peter rounded on her slowly, his smile full of teeth. Doctor Mayhem’s mask made the lines of his face impossibly sharper. “Is this your idea of a silly little trap, my dear? Or can’t you resist me? I know you can feel it.” 

His voice was like oil, thick and foul and overwhelming. His eyes glowed their unnatural light, and Sage could feel his power tug in her bones. She stood her ground, pointedly aware of his pull strengthening with every step he took, but Doctor Mayhem seemed just as powerless to stop.

He drew closer and closer and…

“I came here to kill you.” 

Lydia scream knocked him on his back, her nails digging through the turf like she needed something to steady herself. Suddenly a well-placed shot hit him in the chest. It exploded into a net that kept him pinned, Ms. Monster incredibly pleased with herself as she put down her gun. From the corners of the field, magnetized bars came up of the ground. Hiding behind her own cloud cover, Tempest’s control of electricity and atmospheric pressure was fine-tuned and precise after days of practice for this one task, and the walls of Peter’s cell came together seamlessly. Once they clicked in place, it felt as if a wet blanket had been draped over his mind, cutting off his power supply and leaving him exhausted.

A cheer ran through the heroes, and Tempest touched the Earth to slowly help Sage to her feet. Lydia’s grin was victorious. But their prisoner was clapping.

“Almost impressive. Almost. But you didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you?” Peter sneered. Suddenly, the very foundation of the building trembled as dozens upon dozens of Peter’s pets flooded onto the field. Big Ugly was leading their charge.

From far away, Mason’s voice seemed so small, “ _Crap_.”

* * *

 

 “You know this would be a lot faster, if I just checked all the rooms myself. You know that. Right? Right? Right?” The Stiles wheedled, and Rocket Boy sighed just as he had for the last fifteen times the speedster had brought it up.

“There could be traps down here,” he explained. “I know exactly where we’re going.” It was a half-truth, but only just. Scott couldn’t explain it, but it was as if someone had handed him the map of the building and superimposed it over his eyes. They were following a thread of energy through an impossible maze, already two floors below the baseball diamond. Yet he was absolutely certain that this wasn’t a trap. The thread was bright red. It felt as familiar to Rocket Boy as the back of his hand.

Abruptly, the speedster stopped, his hand heavy on Scott’s shoulder. His face was grim, as if set in stone. “They released the robots.”

Rocket Boy gave him the most winning smile he could manage. He told himself he wasn’t worried. If he kept that up, he might almost believe himself. “Don’t worry, we planned for that, too.”

It helped to have a genius inventor on their team, Scott just didn’t want to think about exactly _how_ Mason had been so prepared to take down Peter. All of the traps, the lures, and the cage were designed to respond to his specific power. Doctor Mayhem’s power. Rocket Boy’s power. Scott hadn’t asked why Mason was so far along in their development. It was hard to accept his friends had to find ways to counter  _him_ if he ever lost control again.

But Stiles had promised that he wouldn’t let it happen and the future was going to have to wait until they found a way to save the present. One world destroying problem at a time. Scott couldn’t have stopped even if he wanted to, drawn forward by that irresistible pull that wound its way around his gut and sang through his blood like a siren’s song.

The speedster followed, worried and frustrated by the slow pace, but Scott was a man possessed as he brought them down into the bowels of Doctor Mayhem’s expansive lair.

They stopped outside of a blank white door, indistinguishable on the outside from any of the others, but Rocket Boy stretched his hand out and red energy crackled from his fingertips. Some mechanism in the door reacted to the touch of his power and it silently slid open. Lights blinked on along the floor, illuminating the horror at the heart of Doctor Mayhem’s experiments.

Large tubes lined the sides of the room as far as they could see, so many that they were lost in the darkness. Lights and displays flickered besides each one, monitoring the status of the thing floating inside. The muscles in Scott’s jaw tightened as he slowly floated down the rows, trying to keep himself from being sick.

They were alive, but not  _alive_. A hollow mass of cells developed into something vaguely human shaped. Something different from his other creations, these had been built from scratch instead of twisting innocent victims. He reached for one, dragging his fingers down the glass and jerked back as the thing inside spasmed, reacting to the energy in his veins. It felt familiar, a link as intimate and invasive as when he accidentally dipped into Stiles’s mind. These things were him, some strange half-living version of him. If Doctor Mayhem couldn’t find enough people to infect, he was growing his own lab rats.

It was an abomination.

He looked at Stiles, eyes glowing red with panic. “He’s making his own monsters. They’re like Big Ugly, but he’s not done with them yet. Oh my god, he’s trying to create his own army. I can feel them, Stiles. They’re screaming!”

Stiles took a step back before he could help himself, hands balled into fists, his throat constricting. With as much confidence as he could muster, he ordered, “Rocket Boy, I need you to calm down.”

But his plea fell on deaf ears. Stiles wasn’t even sure he spoke. It was hard to concentrate when Rocket Boy was trembling with strength, his power rolling off of him in waves. Bright crimson licked up his arms, bleeding from his finger tips and casting an eerie glow across his uniform. The ground beneath his feet crackled. “They’re  _screaming_ ,” Scott moaned, utterly miserable as he scratched at the side of his head, making skin sizzle and burn only to heal over a second later, but not before leaving a bloody trail that stretched to his jaw. “They’re screaming. I can’t stop them!”

“ _Rocket Boy! Stiles, Stiles, The Stiles! We could use some help up here!”_ Ms. Monster demanded, the com in Stiles’s ear coming to life with a too loud beep.

“We’re dealing with our own shit here,” Stiles hissed through gritted teeth. He’d turned his attention away from Scott for one second. Just one second. Then a blast of red flashed across his eyes, and a bitter chill settled over his bones. His own fear was drowned out in an inhuman scream. Stiles ducked for cover, hands over his head, desperate to keep it where it was. It took him too long to realize that Scott had made that godawful noise.

Surges of energy crashed through Doctor Mayhem’s laboratory, destroying everything in its wake. The pods collapsed, glass shattering across the floor, waves of water soaking the linoleum as their inhabitants fell apart. Still Scott didn’t stop screaming.

“ROCKET BOY!”

Ms. Monster crackled on the coms, “ _What’s going on down there?!”_ She never got her answer. She didn’t need it. Because the field split open and a God soared to the sky.

A New God.

Scott pulled the energy into himself, drawing it through his body until it burned everything else clean. Doctor Mayhem had used this power to hurt people, the only safe way to keep it was to lock it somewhere he could never reach. The screaming stopped and everything was replaced with a profound sense of calm, the eye of the storm that whipped around him like the birth of a star with jagged edges of red lightning and tendrils of light too bright to look at.

The ground beneath them fell away into a giant sink hole, collapsing down into Doctor Mayhem’s lair as he took every last drop of power his creator had ever harnessed. The half-formed monsters died, he felt them all snuff out like candle flames to feed the storm. They’d never truly been alive and he couldn’t save them, but at least he could give them some sort of peace safe from the pain and torment of Doctor Mayhem’s experiments.

Angry voices caught his attention and seemed to come from miles away. He turned his eyes on the figures scrambling for cover, the pupils lost in a blaze of red so bright it was almost white. Peter had broken through Mason’s cage and was scrambling to escape, but Scott silently held his hand out to his creator, power slithering along his skin to call to Doctor Mayhem’s so he could rip it free. He tore the energy from his creator as Peter screamed, reducing him to human in a matter of seconds and adding the last drops of power to his own.

He was  _whole_.

Grace flamed and burned where he walked, a wave of plasma spilling across the ground like liquid as the creature that had been Rocket Boy looked out at the world as if it was the first time he’d seen it. It was strange, alien, cluttered and chaotic. He could see the way it fit together with gnarled strands and broken ends, all brutal violence and pain.

“I can see it.” He said to himself, voice distorted beyond recognition as a thousand voices spoke at once. “I can make it better.”

A hush fell over the field, broken only by Peter Hale’s broken sobs. Nothing was left of Doctor Mayhem but a pained, broken mess of a man, who struggled and failed to keep himself together in the face of his mortality. With an unflinching gaze, Rocket Boy took control of the robots that tore through the stadium, and deactivated him with a quick flick of his wrist. Big Ugly toppled over without a hit. There was nothing but death and debris all around.

Stiles was the only one brave enough to break it.

“Rocket Boy,” the speedster called, pulling himself out of the rubble of Doctor Mayhem’s laboratory, covered in dust and coughing on smoke. “ _Scott_ … You have to come down now.”

“You didn’t tell me it was like this.” Rocket Boy spoke in little more than a whisper, but it carried beyond the stadium. A ripple felt around the world. “We do nothing for them. Everything we do, the best we’ve done… We’ve changed _nothing_.” His words were filled with despair. And disgust. 

“That’s not true.” Stiles’s voice broke as Malia helped Kira to her feet and they grabbed Lydia to take shelter in the dugout. He should have joined them, but the speedster saw the monster that had haunted him for the first time in so long and instead of running, he took another step forward. “We help people, it’s what you always wanted.”

“It’s so small.” Scott tipped his head upwards, clouds swirling around the city and lit by the blaze of power that turned the whole sky red. “It’s more than a man, more than humanity. The system is broken, I can see it falling apart. Everything created ends up destroyed.” Rage lurked like a broken knife in his voice as he pulled reality itself apart in a jagged tear and reached through, yanking Peter into his fist from the other side of the field. Doctor Mayhem hung in his grip, frail and human as Rocket Boy studied him with a frightening detachment.

“One tiny being. Even his dreams were so small. He’s a symptom of the infection, a parasite. It’s destroying you all.” He dropped Peter in a heap and turned to Stiles, the newborn god bright with hope. Flames licked his heels as he crossed the distance between them and Stiles was rooted to the spot, transfixed by this monster, this angel, that wore galaxies like a crown. “I can see where it’s broken.” He murmured and without even touching, his presence burned through Stiles’s body with an agonizing compassion that bound the speedster’s will without even trying. “I can save you.”

The sickening sound of breaking bone rang through Stiles’s ears. Doctor Mayhem made no move to get back up, and the speedster was afraid of what he’d see if he turned his head. He had no choice in the matter. Scott demanded his focus, as undeniable and inevitable as the shifting tide. 

“You’re already mine.” Scott murmured, the barest hints of surprised pleasure underlining his words, and he reached out, hands ghosting over Stiles’s hair. They barely touched, but the force between was enough to send him to his knees, head hanging low as he fought a wave of nausea. The toes of Scott’s combat boots were scuffed from when he used to drag his feet while he walked. It was such a small, human sign, Stiles could have cried. That couldn’t be all that was left of his best friend. 

“You were always  _mine.”_

“Hey, Ugly!”

Scott turned, startled and the meaty fist of a two-hundred pound gorilla crashed into his face and sent him flying. He skidded into the dirt, and the electrified bars of the Maze Master’s tailored prison sprung up around him. Tempest dared a small smile. They worked immediately, even with the damage they’d taken.

They just weren’t enough. 

The power they siphoned was twice as much as what they’d taken from Doctor Mayhem, but their new prisoner didn’t even flinch. As easily as crushing an ant, Rocket Boy crushed the prison under his hands. A shrill cry hit him dead on, Sage’s focus razor-sharp and determined, but Scott raised his hands, and she went with them, dangling in the air and choking on unseen power. “You could be mine.” He commented softly. “You were built for this.”

The crimson sky parted with a flash of lightning that hit Scott dead on. Stiles and Lydia screamed as one, startled in their pain, but Tempest forced him into the dirt. She was the only one powerful enough to elicit a response. Stiles had seen this battle before and even if they were so much younger now. Tempest was the only one who’d survived standing against the Autarch for all those years, standing toe-to-toe with a demon. They battled like Titans, a terrible energy crackling through the air, both of them still so young, still so unpolished, but capable of so much more than they could ever imagine.

But Tempest was at a disadvantage. She didn’t want to hurt her friend. Rocket Boy had stopped holding back.

She fell from the sky, and Stiles screamed. It was Ms. Monster who got to Scott first, only to be banished her with a wave of his hand, sending his teammates crumpling atop one another. When he was done, he pulled Stiles from the heap, dragging him up to his eye-level, to consider the spoils of his war.

There was a sheen of sweat across his brow, and his breathing came in ragged gasps, but his voice was as steady as ever. “Let me protect you, Stiles. That’s all I ever wanted.” 

“No.” Stiles breathed the word into Scott’s chest as the creature cupped his face and need ignited in his bones. It sang in his head like a siren song promising overwhelming pleasure, comfort, trust. It was demanding and gentle, all he had to do was stop fighting and worship at the feet of his new savior.

Scott’s smile was almost sad as he dragged his thumb across the speedster’s parted lips. “I don’t want to hurt any of you. Just let me save you.”

For a moment, Stiles wavered, resting his head gratefully against Scott’s hip. He’d never felt so sure, the world was simple through Scott’s eyes. There was no worry or fear, no uncertainty when he knew that Scott could make everything right, just the way it was supposed to be. He was safe and loved like he’d never been in his whole life. Not even the Autarch’s leash had felt so good.

The thought of his nightmare made him shiver and he clung to that last piece of his will before Scott could sweep it from him with warm smiles and soft commands. “Scott, stop. This isn’t you.”

The god seemed almost confused. “This is right. It’s clear for the first time, just trust me.”

Stiles gave a weak sob, feeling his will chip away under Scott’s hands. What else would a hero do except save the world and whatever Scott had become could reshape everything to bring them peace. But Stiles had seen that future and peace was only for the obedient. Kira had sent him back to stop the Autarch from destroying everything, this was the moment he was supposed to prevent. She’d died and he was her own chance to live again, but he couldn’t sacrifice Scott even to save the world.  

There had to be something left of his best friend in the Autarch.

Shaking hands curled around Scott’s shoulders, digging in painfully as he gave the creature a shake. “You can’t save the world like this.”

“Of course I can, Stiles. I know how to make it better now.”

“No! This is what you do, Scott. You sacrifice yourself top save everyone else and maybe that’s something that heroes do, but you can’t let it take everything you are. Sometimes you have to think about yourself. You have to be selfish! I promised you that I wasn’t going to let you become this and I won’t stop fighting for you because someone has to if you won’t. Not for the world, for _you_ , Scott McCall.”

“I…” For the first time, something chipped at that unfaltering confidence, cracks lining the cloaked of certainty and misguided benevolence that marred Rocket Boy’s features behind his mask. He was so damn young. Stiles never expected it, even as he ran his hands down his sleek, intimidating costume, power skirting across his skin, power that sang through his veins. “I can’t do that. There’s too much that needs to be done.”

“You don’t have to do this alone.” Stiles whispered, like he couldn’t taste ozone on the back of his mouth or his best friend wasn’t boiling his blood. He pressed closer, always so stubborn, but Scott let out a strangled little noise, closing his eyes. Stiles pulled off Rocket Boy’s helmet. Scott’s hair stuck to his head, static sending only the shortest tips towards the sky, sweat dripping down his brow. _Young._ “You’re only human, Scott.”

“I can do more. I’m not like the rest of them,” the hero protested, but his voice was soft and uncertain. 

Stiles kissed him and tasted ash. Scott melted against him, a tired sigh tearing from his throat like it took everything in him to keep it leashed. When Stiles whispered in his ear, it was with vicious ferocity. The same he’d use to protect Scott for as long as he breathed.

“You don’t owe anyone a damn thing.”

Scott sagged against him, the power flickering out and leaving them both staggering under the weight of being human. The skies rumbled as the storm disbursed and red tainted clouds gave way to a tentative blue sky. Kira helped Lydia stand as Malia warily approached the two boys who barely kept each other standing.

“I’m sorry.” Scott murmured against his best friend’s neck. He’d been so willing to take that step and sacrifice everything he was to save the world. No one had ever told him that it was okay  _not_  to. Saving himself had never been an option and it left him stunned that anyone cared enough to fight for him. That perfect clarity faded as the world resumed its complicated shades of grey, confusion and relief and exhaustion battling to claim the young hero.

He could still feel the power beat inside of him, a supernova bursting within his chest with stronger than it had ever been, but it was different? Without Doctor Mayhem and his twisted experiments pulling the lines of power and throwing everything off balance, Scott felt whole like a missing piece had been put back in place. 

“I’ve got you, Scott.” The speedster said, arms still wrapped tight around the hero and refusing to let him go even as darkness crept into his vision. “I’m not going to lose you, I promised.”

They heard a shout, one of the girls calling out to them, but the words were lost as they both collapsed.


	12. Chapter 12

“I’m sorry.”

Lydia smiled and let her hand rest against Scott’s knee. The hero looked tired, deep circles under his eyes and his skin had a flush like he’d been sunburned, but they were all in one piece. At the end of the day, that’s what mattered most. “So you’ve said.”

“I mean it, Lydia. I’m really sorry for what happened.”

“Scott, I was there. I know you lost control, but you found it again and you won. I’ve never seen anything like it, you were all real heroes.”

Scott sighed and hunched his shoulders even lower. The end of their battle with Doctor Mayhem was a jumble of images and feelings he couldn’t understand. He’d become something else briefly and almost missed the way the entire world seemed so easily understood, everything so clear and insignificant. He’d stepped back into the mess of being ordinary even if it was difficult and there were plenty of amends to make. He was glad his friends were willing to hear him out. “But I hurt all of you and that’s not okay.”

She slapped her hand down on his knee to snap him out of his self-pitying. “Stop it. I know better than anyone what that kind of power can do to you, okay? He did it to me too. He took over my thoughts and I lost myself, but you beat it.  _We_  beat him even if there were bumps along the way. Everyone’s already forgiven you, you’re punishing yourself for no reason.”

He managed a small smile, comforted by her words even if her compassion came with a stern lecture. She had only been with them for such a short time, but Lydia already felt like one of the family. “Thank you, I…I guess I needed to hear that.”

“No kidding. You’re going to kill yourself if someone doesn’t stop you, McCall. Which is why-” She stopped, her haughty veneer suddenly crumbling like she was almost shy. Lydia gathered herself, rallying her confidence and playing the part even if her nerves “It’s why I’ve decided to stay. Peter did this to both of us, but watching you turn it into something so important…you saved everything, Scott. If you can do that, then so can I.”

“I know you can, Lydia. You’re really brave and we need your help.” Scott insisted. He hesitated, moving slowly to embrace her, but she was the one who pulled him in, impatient and wryly amused. Scott held on as tight as he dared, and something sparked along his skin, prickling wherever they touched. An unmistakable rush of power. This time it didn’t hurt. Far from it. 

Tucking his face into her shoulder, he whispered, “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

On anyone else, Lydia would have thought them patronizing, but she couldn’t see anything but earnestness on her teammate’s face. She’d already accomplished a lot of things in her life, more than most of her peers could ever cope with, but this victory felt more substantial than the rest. 

The only one who was depending on her here was herself. It felt good.

“You couldn’t have.” She agreed. Not a beat later, jerking her finger over her shoulder at the door, she added, “Now why don’t you tell Stiles to quit pacing. He’s not as quiet as he thinks.”

“Hey!” 

Scott could hear his indignation from the other side, and his face broke out in a hopeless grin. Lydia rolled her eyes, but she didn’t look as annoyed as she could be. 

“ _Go_. I have work to do.”

Scott flushed up to his ears, and pulled away carefully. With one last final apology, he was rushing out the door. Lydia heard him crash into Stiles and wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

* * *

 

It was the Snackapocalypse. They’d raided the communal kitchen and taken everything they could carry to Stiles’s room. The speedster cheated and went back for thirds while Scott was still halfway there. Now Stiles was busying himself with stuffing his face. Scott couldn’t take his eyes off the chocolate bar in his own hand. It was almost easier with what he had to say.

“I never got to thank you.” Scott whispered, looking out at their bounty. Stiles made the appropriated grunts of approval around a mouthful of chips. If Scott concentrated, he could sense every shifting muscle, every twitching nerve in his best friend’s body. He was pointedly aware of their proximity, and the energy that pulsed between them. “I guess you’re going to go home soon.”

Achieving what a string of wild horses would’ve failed to do, Scott made Stiles put down his snacks.

“What?”

Scott worried the plastic wrapper of his candy bar, fraying the edges into confetti. “You said you came back to stop me and you did. You saved me from being whatever it was I turned into in the future, right? That means you get to go back home. I’m sure Mason will figure out how to fix your machine sooner or later and-“

“I’m not going anywhere.” Stiles recovered from his shock and nudged the other boy with his toe, trying to get Scott to look up at him. “This wasn’t ever going to be a two way trip, dude. I changed my future, there’s nothing to go back to.”

The look on Scott’s face was heartbreaking and Stiles leaned against the other boy, trying to coax him away from his sadness. It felt good, a low hum along his skin where they touched the their shared energy equalized. It was warm, the kind of warmth that sank deep into his bones and promised a kind of wordless comfort.

“I didn’t know… I’m so sorry, Stiles. You gave up everything.”

“Are you kidding?” Stiles gave the other boy a gentle shove. “There wasn’t anything there to give up and now I have a team and friends and a home. This is everything I wanted, Scott. More than I ever thought I could have. I don’t regret it at all.”

Scott pulled himself away, still tense and unhappy. He’d ruined a future that he’d destroyed. They’d managed to avoid the danger, but Stiles had still barely survived because of him. All those people, everyone Stiles had ever known had all suffered because of  _him_. The guilt for actions Scott hadn’t even committed still felt like it was crushing him.

Stiles always knew when to pull him out of his own head.

“Hey, this just means I get to write my own future, and I’ve got the best person I can by my side for it. My best friend.”

Scott smiled, slow and uncertain. He never could help himself when Stiles called him that. His best friend. He couldn’t believe he had one sometimes. It was almost as hard to believe as when Stiles would lean forward, so close that Scott could count his long lashes, tilt his head and…

 “I might hurt you again,” Scott whispered, so softly the speedster almost missed it. He was terrified of the possibilities. Then Stiles gave him his most wicked smile.

“Well, duh. And I could hurt you too.” Stiles leaned in, crushing an empty packet of chips under his knee, and Scott held his breath, moving in a little on instinct. “I think the whole point of this is to not do that.”

Stiles swallowed thickly. Scott’s eyes narrowed, his eyes darting to the curve of Stiles’s throat, watching his Adam’s apple bobbed. He’d seen this before. Stiles was egging himself on for something. “Okay Scotty? Because I want to do a whole lot of not that. Not hurting you. In fact, I wanna do a whole lot of making you feel really good, all the time. With me.”

That was the kicker. That was what mattered.

“Now, I’m gonna kiss y-”

Scott was just a step ahead.

He bowled Stiles over, pressing him into their crumb-covered sheets, and kissed him like his life depended on it. Because Scott was pretty damn sure it did.

It wasn’t often that someone moved faster than the fasted man on earth. 

Scott laughed into Stiles’s mouth, knocking a bag of Twizzlers off the bed and crushing a tube of Oreos. There was so much he wanted to say, but didn’t know the words. This was so new and terrifying, but Scott so desperately wanted to take the risk.  _Best friend_ , that meant everything.

Heat washed through Scott, curling through his gut and lower, body tightening as the power sparked between them. He rucked the speedster’s shirt up, running his hands down along the freckled skin and taut muscle. It was a strange feeling, an echo in his nerves like he could feel his own hands against Stiles’s chest. Creator and created, they could be like something Doctor Mayhem could never imagine. 

The last time they’d tried this, Stiles had ended up in the medical wing and Scott pulled the energy back reluctantly, cutting himself off from the other boy. For a moment, he was disoriented in his own skin and clamped his mouth down on his apology. He was always apologizing, but he wasn’t going to be sorry for this when it was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“I’ve never done this before and I’m not going to hurt you ever again. I promise I won’t, Stiles.”

“Stop worrying and start making out with me, dumbass.” The speedster was always helpful and pulled Scott down with a grin, ready to risk a few seizures for a chance to kiss that smile from his face. Scott went willingly, awkward and uncomfortable and way too eager. Teeth clashed and Stiles squirmed to get away from the Pringles can pressing into his back, but neither one of them wanted to come up for air.

Then Stiles’s hand settled high on his thigh, squeezing with intent, and Scott’s brain stuttered to a painful halt. He almost missed Stiles’s question. “So you mean, never  _never_?”

Scott gaped at the speedster, eyes bugging out of his head, but Stiles’s hand had started moving again, up and down Scott’s cotton-clad skin, moving higher and higher with every lap, inching closer and closer to Scott’s places and things. 

“Like ever?”

Scott licked his lips, trying to unstuck the words caught in his throat. Oh they were going to do it. They were going to… fuck.  _Fuckiddy doo dah_ , touch dicks, bump uglies, and suddenly, Scott was 8 years old and trying to stand up to a playground bully, more furious than he’d ever been in his young life but still too worried to do anything more than  _whisper_  the word. Scott’s face flushed beet-red at the memory. For some reason, that made Stiles lean in and kiss his cheek.

“Scott dude, you’re all red.”

“I’m not - oh.” Scott lifted his hand, startled to see a shimmer of red energy prickling across his skin. “I guess I am.”

They pulled away slowly, but the silence was thick with intent. Stiles was doing his best to hide the fact that he was watching Scott like a hawk, meaning Scott knew exactly what he was doing.

Scott reached out slowly, cupping his best friend’s cheek. Crimson flared against Stiles’s skin, before abating to a simmer so low, it might as well have been gone. “Never ever, but I want to.” Scott said, a little too breathless, a little too soft. “Don’t be weird.”

“Hey, I’m never weird!” Stiles argued but Scott just shoved him back against the bed and straddled the other boys hips, feeling braver and more foolish than he’d ever felt in his life. 

“You’re always weird.” Scott countered, silencing the protest with a kiss. “Just don’t be any weirder than usual.”

Stiles mumbled his reply into Scott’s mouth, long fingers curling around the hero’s hips to rock them together. He was being consumed, burning from the inside out as his own power called out to Scott’s. There was an ebb and flow, energy crashing through them in a tide that left them both breathless, but whole. Scott might not have known what he was doing, but he was a natural at knowing the way the two of them could fit together.

There was no one else who understood, no one who’d had their lives ripped apart and still fought so hard to do something good. The words best friend didn’t even come close. Scott wanted to give him the world and if he couldn’t do that, then at least a real future.

Scott pulled his shirt gracelessly up over his head, hair standing in a million different directions and a wry grin tugging at the corner of his plush lips. “You gonna show me a thing or two, or am I going to have to figure it out on my own cuz I’m not really against this whole trial and error thing. I might need a little practice before I get it right, if you’re willing to help me out.”

“Oh.  _Yeah._  Trial and error. Lots of trial. So much error,” Stiles whispered, as reverent as a disciple at the altar. He ran his hands up the panes of Scott’s chest, his fingers fanning out across his partner’s ribs, spread as far as he could. Anything to feel more. Touch more. “We gotta get it down perfect.”

Scott shuddered, letting his best friend tease before he bent over, intent on kissing him to death. Then suddenly, in a whirl of movement, he was flat on his back, completely bare, his shirt hanging from the ceiling. The speedster beamed down at him, straddling his hips, in all his glory. There was a whole lot of glory, hanging heavily by Stiles’s thigh. It was all naked.

“Huh?  _Huh?”_ Stiles baited, hands on his waist, posing like a comic book hero, and Scott burst out laughing. Oh God, Stiles was still hard.

They tussled and made out, play wrestling one second and playing for something so much more the next. Stiles kept his hands on Scott’s hips, fascinated by the way he shivered and thrust against him, and they kissed and kissed. And  _kissed._

“Thought about this a lot. Thought about this for so long,” Stiles slurred, greedily. He gasped so prettily when Scott pinned his hands above his head, drawn tight as a bowstring and arched into his best friend’s body to touch everywhere he could reach. “Wanted you. Hated how much I wanted you. You drove me so goddamn crazy, Scott, Scott,  _Scott.”_

His voice rose with every syllable, rising to a fever pitch and Scott kissed the sound right out of his mouth. Pleasure rose and rose with every thrust, until Scott’s nerves started to buzz. He’d never felt so powerful, so alive. He was caught on a tightrope, balancing between want and surrender but too reckless to stop walking. Scott could feel his self-control chipping away, slipping through his fingers as he fought to last for one moment more, just one moment more.

But the slap of skin on skin was the filthiest thing he’d ever heard, until Stiles whispered, “I wanna be inside you.”

“Yes.” The word slipped from Scott’s lips in a shocked whisper, a glowing red flush flickering over his skin. The speedster’s weight was gone from his body in a moment, a heartbeat’s annoyance at being denied before it was back as Stiles waggled the lube like a prize in Scott’s face.

“Just relax, Scotty.” He crowed, running the slick lube across his fingers. “I’m going to make you feel good.”

Scott wasn’t sure if  _good_  was quite the word. It wasn’t bad, definitely strange as Stiles traced cool fingertips around his rim and slowly sunk one finger inside. He jumped at the touch as Stiles murmured nonsense to help him relax, willing his body to unclench. He’d never seen Stiles move so slowly before. The speedster took great pride in his abilities and saw just about everything as a competition, but he was careful now, gentle as he worked Scott open and giving him time enough to adjust.

The strangeness gave way to something more, something intimate and overwhelming as Scott rocked his body back against Stiles’s hand. His breath caught as his best friend leaned closer, kissing along the reddened skin of Scott’s inner thigh and higher to lick a wet stripe from the base of his cock to the tip.

“Come  _on_.” Scott whined, lifting his hips and demanding more. A second finger joined the first, fucking deep inside of him as Scott dropped his head back and groaned. He wrapped his hand around his aching cock, but Stiles shooed him away.

“Nope, no touching. And which one of us is going to finish too fast?”

“If you don’t shut up and fuck me right now, then I’m doing this without you.” Scott whispered as harshly as he could as his best friend laughed.

Stiles was smiling, infuriatingly bright, and when he leaned down to kiss him, Scott dodged and blew a raspberry on his cheek. It was the best sort of revenge, both of them graceless but eager. Then Stiles’s hands were on his thighs, spreading him them apart. Scott followed his greedy stare, flushed and shamelessly pleased until Stiles spread his thighs further, giving him room to push in.

It was more than Scott could ever have prepared for. Hot and heavy, filling him where he’d never been touched, he trembled under the onslaught of sensation. Above him, Stiles let out a throaty groan, like he was in pain, but the look on his face was utterly taken. Scott had never seen him look that way, so intense, so focused.

“Stiles…” Scott whispered, reaching up and wrapping his arms around his best friend’s shoulders. Their noses bumped together, so close Scott could steal his air from his lips. He couldn’t help but arch up a little more, giving himself over. 

“Stiles, move _.”_

The speedster groaned, his head hanging low between his shoulders, too much effort to keep steady, but he moved thank god he moved. His cock dragged through Scott, carving a space through his aching body. Sparks of red danced in front of his eyes, leaving Scott breathless and shaking. He gasped when Stiles caught him by the wrists, pinning his hands above his head. 

Scott’s cock pressed between them, spilling precum between their bellies, and Stiles made it worse every time he moved. They found a rhythm, one too fast and too deep to keep up for long, but they tried, too desperate to do anything else.

Scott begged, mewling and pleading, wild-eyed and hungry, arching up to meet every thrust. Eyes screwed shut, panting again and again and “Please. Please oh fuck Stiles please I’m gonna - it’s please…”

He was beautiful like this, willing and wanton and just enough wicked to make Stiles’s head spin. For the first time in his whole life, there wasn’t the Autarch or a war. There wasn’t even a future, just the present with Scott’s body tight around him, his best friend’s mouth sweet and gasping whispered pleas. Even time seemed to slow, no longer rushing through every second too fast for anyone else to keep up. They had found a rhythm all their own.

Stiles pressed his advantage, fucking deep enough to punch out a groan from Scott’s abused lips with every thrust. His hands tightened around his best friend’s wrists, nails digging deep into brown skin.

“Scott.” He moaned around the name, loving the sound of it.  _Scott_. It would always be Scott now that they’d won.

With a half-choked grunt, every muscle pulled tight and Stiles came, pulling out to come against Scott’s ass. It dripped down Scott’s skin, slick and wet as he spent himself.

A soft whimper drew his attention back to the man in his arms and he smiled, licking Scott’s mouth open as he twisted a tight hand around his partner’s cock. A few quick strokes and it was over, Scott spilling over Stiles’s knuckles and splattering across his stomach. With a breathless laugh, Stiles flopped down on his best friend and ignored the mess between them as he tipped Scott’s head back and kissed him.

“That was…you are…I mean, wow.” He said articulately as he coaxed the other boy’s arms around him. As tired as he was, energy hummed in his bones, warm and comforting as if he’d found a piece of himself that had been missing. A real balance. “Not so bad for your first time, huh?”

It took Scott a minute to answer, still trying to piece his brain back together again before he smiled. “I told you I’d last longer.”

Stiles squawked, full of righteous indignation, and kicked him off the bed, but Scott was laughing the whole way down. He was still laughing when he launched a counter-attack.

It was the beginning of a gloriously gross relationship.

* * *

 

Not much changed after they started dating, not in any fundamental way. It was a startling realization that left Scott giddy when he least expected it. They were never farther than a stone’s throw away from each other. They were constantly disgusting. They told each other everything. Now that the Autarch was gone, it really was everything.

The big change was now there was more kissing involved.

Things were looking up for the team as a whole. They’d gotten their names in the papers. Doctor Mayhem was arrested and would never see the light of day again. Lydia hadn’t had an unwanted vision in weeks. Kira aced her mid-terms, Malia kissed her a lot, and Scott spent most of his time smiling like it was going out of style.

One of these days it was going to stop, sooner rather than later probably, but not right now. Right now, he was putting the finishing touches on a picnic table that included three extra-large pizzas, a bucket of chicken wings, and more orders of curly fries than he was comfortable admitting to. On the top of a park hill overlooking the (still damaged) baseball stadium, he had a bird’s eye view of Beacon Hills that Scott was sure Stiles would appreciate almost as much as the tiny box on the center of the table, the one with a card that said ‘Happy <3 months’ and carried a driver’s license with Stiles’s face on it. His first civilian identity card.

Scott figured his best friend would appreciate that more than his forged birth certificate, especially if it meant he could legally drive through things now. He’d hounded Mason for weeks about everything, and it felt right, because this was their big day.

He loved Stiles, loved him with all his heart. Today Scott was going to tell it to his face. Just thinking about it made all the butterflies in his stomach freak out.

As if on cue, his communicator beeped to life, and from across town, Stiles’s voice came in loud and clear. “ _I’m so boooored_.”

With fifteen minutes left on his shift and no one around to pawn them off on, Scott suspected the speedster felt like he was dying. He kind of felt that way too.

“You gonna cut out early? If you’re not here soon, I might start eating all the pizza without you.” Scott teased and the communicator squawked with Stiles’s indignant reply. “Just meet me as soon as you can.”

“ _I’ll be there, dude! Don’t you dare eat anything without me_.” Stiles switched off the communicator and slumped back into the chair at their headquarters, scowling at Mason’s wall of monitors. Nothing was going to happen and no one would notice if he left a few minutes early. Scott was waiting for him and that was worth taking the risk.

He sighed heavily, squeaking the chair back and forth as he stared at the clock through glazed eyes, willing it to go faster. Every minute was an eternity to a speedster, this was literal torture.

The monitor beeped softly and Stiles jumped, leaning forward to check the screens. A faint reading appeared in downtown with the same power signature as Scott, that phantom echo that had been plaguing the system for months. Clearly Mason hadn’t fixed all the bugs in the system. He tapped his fingers against the screen and smiled. If he ducked out to just make sure the echo wasn’t anything, no one could say he was slacking and he’d still be able to make it to Scott sooner. It was better than sitting around watching the clock tick down!

In a blur of speed, Stiles was gone, racing out of their headquarters and through the city streets, pulling up outside of an alley between two old brick buildings. He skidded to a stop and peered inside, checking behind the leaking dumpsters and piles of garbage. Nope! Just like he knew, everything was gross and totally normal, now he could grab himself some pizza and a handful of Scott’s butt.

He never got the chance.

The world split open like reality had been torn apart, jagged edges pulsing in a familiar red as one heavy boot stepped from the light into the alleyway. Fear crawled into Stiles’s throat and he took one shaky step backwards as his nightmare forced itself into his world.

“H-how?!” The young hero gasped. “You can’t be here. You can’t-”

His voice cut off with a choked lurch. Stiles never got a chance to scream.

* * *

 

The numbers on his watch turned with a new hour, and Scott held his breath, waiting for the all too familiar whoosh of displaces air that always signaled an impatient speedster’s arrival. Thirty seconds later, and he begrudgingly opened a pizza box. It was just like Stiles to wait for the most dramatic moment to pop in.

Nothing happened.

Scott popped open a couple of soda cans, got started on the chicken wings. It was almost comforting to think that Stiles was just as nervous as he was over this whole lame anniversary thing. Two more minutes passed.

“Hey, did you get lost on your way here?” He teased into his communicator. He waited a minute, then three more. They were like decades to a speedster. There was no reply.

Scott helped himself to ranch. He imagined Stiles finally showing up and how affronted he would be. Then he’d say, ‘If you wanted dip, you’d show up on time,’ and Stiles would probably call him a dip. A giddy little shiver raced down his spine. Scott was still smiling when he picked up his communicator.

“Hey HQ? Anyone seen a Stiles? Tall-ish, twiggy dude, late more often than someone with super speed should be?”

Kira’s laugh was warm and familiar over the line. It made Scott feel giddy. She was always on time for monitor duty, too.

_“He’s not here, probably en route_.” She reassured him, only for her tone to dip contemplatively. Then it wasn’t Kira on the line. It was Tempest. Scott was on his feet before she finished speaking. “ _There was an anomaly reported on Auburn St. and Eighth, by the warehouses. Looks like he checked it out, and he’s not responding. I’ll be there in three!”_

Scott was in the air before he could change into costume, a bright red glow swallowing his form. The world sped by in his panic.

But he was too late.

He’d been too late for a long time. The hulking, monstrous form of Peter’s beast dragged Stiles’s broken corpse on the ground, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Scott screamed.


	13. Chapter 13

 [20 minutes ago]

Stiles fell to his knees before his nightmare, all it took was a thought from the Autarch and his body was built to obey. He choked on his terror, hands curled into the grimy asphalt of the alleyway. This wasn’t right, he’d saved Scott. They’d changed the future! They’d defeated Doctor Mayhem together and he’d been here to bring Scott back from that ledge before he’d been consumed by Peter’s power. They were finally safe now, he’d done exactly what he’d been sent back to do and no one had to die. He looked up at the man cloaked in red energy like a sinister halo, still beautiful as a fallen angel.

“But we  _won_.” He whispered and the Autarch smiled, the same sweet gentle smile he’d seen on Scott’s face a thousand times, just older. Tired. He’d never realized how much his creator looked like the boy he’d fallen in love with. It wasn’t fair to see Scott through this distorted mirror.

“We did win.” The Autarch crouched down beside him, gloved fingers tipping Stiles’s head up to look at him even as the speedster fought not to look into the empty red eyes of his once best friend. “But victory has a cost.”

“I saved you, Scott.” Stiles’s voice broke and the Autarch sighed as sobs ripped through the boy. “I can still save you.”

“You did save me. You gave me a true friend, the first person I ever truly loved. But you gave me something even more important than that. You saved the future, Stiles.”

“W-what?” The boy stuttered between the tears.

“You played your role perfectly. Who do you think allowed Kira and her rebels access to time travel technology? How do you think that they knew enough about my past to find me as a young man? How do you think  _you_  escaped? This has been planned from the very beginning, you were supposed to be here.”

Stiles jerked away from his touch, still frozen on his knees. He furiously wiped the tears from his face, refusing to believe his creator’s lies. “I was sent here to stop you and that’s what I did! I saved Scott from turning into you.”

The Autarch smiled patiently like he was explaining things to a small child. “The reason I became this is you, Stiles. Loving you and losing you was the reason I had to stop thinking of myself and save the world from itself instead.”

Stiles tensed, his breathe coming in unsteady gasps. Panic threatened to overwhelm him, blurring the corner of his vision, leaving his throat dry and nerves screaming. He still had one chance. He could move his fingers again, his toes, his arms, his calves. If he could just move, far enough…

The Autarch’s strength surged through his veins, trapping every nerve, every cell in his body. “Stiles,” he whispered sadly, cupping his cheek.

“You don’t have to do this.” He pleaded, and tender hands combed through his hair. Everywhere the Autarch touched felt like it was on fire. Stiles was made to lean forward. When the Autarch kissed his brow, it was with the tenderness of a guardian.

“I don’t remember a time where I didn’t love you, Stiles.” The confession would have left Stiles trembling if he could move. There was something terrible, horrible in that voice, almost as overwhelming as its power. “You mean more to me than you could ever know, and I’m so glad… So glad I finally get to say goodbye.”

“Please,” he whimpered, tears trailing down the curve of his cheeks. Stiles couldn’t wipe them away. “I don’t want to die.”

“You’re a hero Stiles. You’re my hero. And I will make sure they never forget you.”

Stiles drew in a breath. The Autarch’s force kept him frozen in place, and in one, smooth motion, his neck snapped. He was dead before he could exhale, and his murderer cradled him close, gently swaying as Stiles’s body lost that brilliant warmth that made him who he was. He’d been careful. He made sure his best friend never felt a thing. He’d ensured the safety of this world and its future, but a part of him still mourned for what they could have been.

“I love you Stiles,” he whispered, carefully lowering him to the ground. There would be statues erected in his honor, in every city, in every town. The world would know their savior. They would learn his name. They would sing it from the rooftops. 

But first, the Autarch summoned his last pawn. Peter’s pet was nothing but a mindless, hungry beast, and the Autarch knew how to provide the most tantalizing bait.


	14. Chapter 14

[Now]

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Scott screamed, voice stripped raw with pain. The burst of red light around him intensified until it glowed a blinding white, the blast sucking all sound and oxygen out of the air. Big Ugly had no recourse against the fury of an avenging hero. It didn’t have a chance to even roar a challenge before the creature was incinerated, whirling away to ash in the filthy alley.

The broken hero stumbled forward those last few steps between him and his best friend, ignoring the way the asphalt had melted and smoke drifted up from the scorched ground. He fell to his knees, gathering up the bloody body in his arms and howled at the sky until there was nothing left inside.

“Please.” The plea was barely spoken, whispered into Stiles’s skin as he pressed his lips to his best friend’s forehead. Little hiccupping, shaking sobs stole his breath between each word. “I love you. You can’t go until I tell you. Stiles please, I love you. Don’t leave me.”

They’d thought they’d won, but there was no winning. No matter how many battles they fought or how many villains they put away, there were always more. For one stupid, amazing, perfect second, Scott thought they could be normal people. That he could have a real life and all the things Peter Hale had taken away from him when he’d turned Scott into this  _thing_. Stiles had made him believe that he was human again.

But that was just a lie. The second he let down his guard, they were struck without warning and that was never going to change. This was all his fault because he’d wanted something more. Love was selfish, how could he have been so careless?

Scott stayed bent over Stiles’s body and sobbed, refusing to let go even with his knees protested and the sun started to slip behind the buildings. It wasn’t until the rest of his team showed up to coax him away, numb and empty, that he finally let Stiles slip away, barely registering as they gathered Big Ugly up and took him away.

Time was a blur. He was sure he must have slept at some point, but the world around him barely registered through his grief. There were only one two words that pounded against the inside of his skull like a steady heartbeat.

_My fault._

_My fault…_

Scott knew they treated him differently. He could feel Lydia’s sad eyes tracking him as he worked silently in the team’s control room. He brushed off Mason’s quiet conversations and Malia’s silent companionship. He ignored the way Kira tried to coax him away from his work. He didn’t let himself be distracted, the work was the only thing that mattered now.

The hallways were too quiet without Stiles’s laughter and his nonstop chatter. He would catch himself leaning sideways against the weight that was always at his side and stumbling when there was no one there to catch him. There were times he caught the blur of movement, almost too fast for the eye to see. He’d turn with a smile, happy for the space between two heartbeats before the memories would catch up with him.

Stiles was gone.

He hadn’t died in battle, fighting some enemy to save the world. They all knew that this job was risky and they’d made that choice, but this was random. Sudden. There wasn’t a chance to prepare, no matter what they did or how many times they saved the city, it was never enough. No one would ever be safe.

“Scott.” Kira’s soft voice startled him and he half turned, not taking his eyes from the map of the city overlaid on the screen. “You need to take a break.”

“I’m fine.” He said shortly. “Someone needs to be watching in case something happens.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Scott. You need to sleep, it’s been days.”

”I don’t need rest.” Scott said, and some old instinct, perhaps even older than the energy that crackled through his skin, told him that her eyes were on him. She wouldn’t be shaken that easily.

“You’re barely eating.” Kira whispered, voice soft but unafraid, secure in her beliefs and her need to watch out for those dearest to her. “Just stop, for a little while. You can take one night-”

“I can’t,” Scott snapped, harsher than he intended to. “We don’t have one night. There’s always something. There’s always going to be something. It doesn’t matter how well we fight or how fast we are! It doesn’t matter how many of them we stop or how many we put away, because there will always, always be more!”

The words settled between them, bobbing like naval mines on unsteady waters.

“What happened was horrible.” It sounded like the words pain Kira to say, and Scott knew without a doubt that she was sincere. He didn’t think it was possible to love her more than he did in that moment, a dear friend, always willing to find something worth fighting for when they were hit the hardest. “And no one deserved that, but there was nothing we could have done. As awful as that was, sometimes these things happen. There will always be something, and tearing yourself apart won’t change that. We can’t control the world.”

Scott met her gaze, eyes wet with grief, red-rimmed and hollow, and he was tired. Hopelessly, painfully tired. She reached out for him. Scott turned away.

“You can’t.”

An uneasy silence settled between them, cut mercifully short by the beeping of an alert. A robbery in progress. Without a word, Rocket Boy got to his feet and walked out the door.

The exhaustion felt like it was hard wired into his body as he landed heavily outside of Beacon Hills First National Bank. How he felt didn’t matter as long as he could fight. Alarms cut through the air as the doors to the bank burst open, two men in masks spilling out onto the street. Rocket Boy had beaten the cops to the scene, so there was still time to stop these men before anyone could get hurt.

He didn’t warn them or hesitate, he didn’t even check to see if they were armed. Rocket Boy plucked one of the man up into the air and threw him across the street effortlessly. The robber screamed before slamming into the side of a metal dumpster hard enough to leave a dent, sliding down to the pavement in a limp heap. His arm hung at his side at an unnatural angle, but Rocket Boy didn’t care, turning his attention on the remaining criminal.

“Stand down.” The hero’s words were an order, energy crackling around him dangerously. 

“Holy shit, did you kill him?!” The robber raised his gun in shaky hands, firing until the weapon clicked empty. The red light around Rocket Boy brightened, blocking the bullets and sending them dropping harmlessly to the ground. He crossed the distance between them, lightening arcing from his heels with every step as the man tried to escape.

“Was it worth it?” Rocket Boy snarled, grasping the criminal by the back of his neck and throwing him to the ground. “How much money did you take? Someone could have died, was it fucking worth it?” He slammed his fist into the man’s chest until bones cracked under his knuckles. His captive gasped, begging wordlessly for his life as he tried to curl away from Scott.

He could have screamed if he could. It still wouldn’t have been enough to stop Scott. Each accusation was scoured with brutality, sharpened to a breaking point that shaped the strength of the hero’s fists.

“You’re selfish and cruel, and you don’t care about who you hurt.” He stood over the would-be thief, watching impassively as pain made fat tears streak down his face. The crook was blubbering now, trying to buy his mercy and when that wasn’t possible, he begged for it anyway. “And if you shot someone, what would you have done? If you  _killed_  someone, what would you have done!?”

“Please…” He sobbed, bringing his hands up to try and shield himself from the unearthly crimson glow. There would be burns on his arms. Scott would make sure of it. He could make his skin  _boil_  if he just-

“Rocket Boy!” 

Before he could deal a fatal blow, a blast of lightning threw him across the room, and like an avenging angel, Tempest stood before him. She was breathing hard, but she’d learned from their last few encounters. They were painful lessons to learn, but she didn’t put them to waste.

The air in the bank dropped ten degrees, and a new sort of power crackled through. Overhead, the sky rumbled, as if waking from a long slumber, commanded by its mistress. At her back, Ms. Monster’s stare was coolly appraising, but it was just them.

It had always been the three of them on the field like this, connected by an understanding they hoped Mason would never have to experience, hardened by experience Lydia had yet to gain. Scott wished that they were standing by his side, not against him.

“Leave him alone. This is out of line.” Behind her mask, Kira’s eyes were sad.

“Why are you powered up?” Scott asked slowly, even if he wasn’t sure he could stand the answer. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“This is wrong, Rocket Boy. That’s enough. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

“He was going to -”

“But you stopped him before he could.”

“Stop trying to hold me back!” Scott roared, frustration and impatience and desperation punching through him with machine gun procession, because she didn’t understand. He needed to make her see.

And Tempest, gentle, kindhearted Tempest turned on him and yelled, “I’m trying to stop you from becoming a murderer!”

“Some people deserve to die!” Scott was yelled back at her, heartbeat beating in his ears as he turned on her. The rage twisted his face into something almost unrecognizable and power pulse from him in waves. “If we don’t do _something_ , then they don’t stop. They just keep coming and coming until we put them down.”

“We don’t get to make those decisions!”

“If we killed Big Ugly when we had the chance, Stiles would still be alive!” The words hung in the air between them, a furious storm that held them both still before Rocket Boy gave a quiet sob and sank down to his knees. Tempest was at his side in an instant, arms wrapped tight around their leader as he shuddered, tears coursing down beneath the edge of his helmet. “I let him die.”

“You didn’t. It’s not your fault. I miss him too, but you couldn’t have known and you didn’t cause it.” Kira whispered, stroking her hands down Scott’s back as Malia went to check on the still breathing robber. 

“I can’t let anyone die like that again.” Scott’s voice was muffled and miserable. No matter how many times he heard that it wasn’t his fault, it never eased the weight where his heart used to be. 

“We do the best we can to save everyone, but you’re just one man, Rocket. There’s always going to be bad guys and we’re always going to stop them.”

_Maybe that was the problem._  Scott thought as Kira helped him stand, pulling him away from the scene as sirens wailed and the police closed in to take over. _Maybe if there weren’t any more bad guys, then no one else would get hurt._

It only got worse. His unending work hours, the shouting matches, the violent outbursts. The silent nights in a room that used to belong to two. Then one day, Lydia answered an emergency call in downtown Beacon Hills. She called everyone except Rocket Boy for assistance.

The mission hadn’t ended badly. Everything else did.

“You cut me out **”**  Scott yelled, as their injured were squirreled away to the infirmary. “The Hollow Man’s a heavy hitter. You needed back up!”

Behind her mask, Lydia was livid. “You would have made it worse! We can’t depend on you out there, so get your head on straight, because we can’t waste our time on the field waiting for you to blow up.”

“Or what?” Scott snarled. The look Lydia sent him was mutinous, but she turned on her heel and walked away. In the wake of her silence, punctured only by the sound of her boots on marble, his question hung in the air, gaining weight as it settled over his shoulders, until it threatened to break them.

They never understood. None of them even tried to. Yet Scott had thought they’d always be there. If they couldn’t be, then his options were… They weren’t what he wanted them to be.

No one was on monitor duty, but for the first time in a long time, Scott opted to retreat to his room, quietly putting as much space as he could between himself and the people he trusted more than family.

Stiles things were exactly where he’d left them. No one had touched them since Scott had moved them to his room, not even Scott, but he looked at them now.

His socks were still rolled up in a lump under the bed where Stiles had left them, his scattered comic books covered the little table in the corner of the room. Scott remembered how excited he’d been about the ‘vintage’ issues he’d been able to find. There wasn’t anything personal, nothing from the life Stiles had escaped in the future, just the little bits and pieces of the new life he’d put together here. With Scott.

His best friend had escaped a horror of a future where even Scott had been corrupted by villains, only to die here when everything was supposed to be safe. It wasn’t fair.

Scott could change it though, shape the future into something better. If his team wasn’t going to help him, then so be it. If they weren’t able to do what needed to be done, then they were just part of the problem. He could wipe out all violence, make sure that anyone who threatened other people was permanently put down. He could build a whole new world with an unending peace where everyone would be happy and taken care of and no one would ever suffer again.

If he had to, Scott would do it alone.

The cluttered mess made him furious, an accusation of all the ways he’d failed. A reminder that Stiles was supposed to come home that night, they were supposed to have a life here. This could have been home instead of some soulless memorial.

Scott swept the mess to the floor with a bitter shout, angry at Stiles for leaving, angry at himself for letting it happen, angry at his team for turning their backs, angry at the world for lying to him that he could ever make a difference.

The sound of Stiles’s voice made him freeze.

Scott froze, certain he was finally losing his mind. Then he was on his knees, tearing through Stiles’s belongings, desperate to find the source of his voice, unaware that his eyes had flashed red or his hands had started shaking.

He tore through Stiles’s backpack, spilling its contents across the floor before he could find the source. It came from a metal device, not unlike the exposed circuitry of a CPU.

A blinking light shone out of it, but when Scott moved the machine, the beam spread until it engulfed the entire room in a blinding flare. He gasped, bringing his hands up to shield his eyes, an when he removed it, it was as if he was in a different world.

What looked like an old garage. The signs of battle continued around him, so unfairly familiar to Rocket Boy. In the center of it all was his best friend.

“Stiles!” Scott croaked, breathless with hope as he ran to the speedster’s side. Only to find he couldn’t touch him. His hands moved straight through him, and Scott didn’t know which one of them was supposed to be a ghost.

“It matters to me,” Stiles croaked, sounding younger than Scott could ever imagine. He watched as a woman with long black hair kissed his brow, wishing him well. Scott didn’t recognize her with the lines that scarred her gaunt cheeks.  _Kira._  

Stiles was shoved into the ship just as the door burst open. Scott watched in horror as Tempest cut down the first wave if soldiers in cold blood. She didn’t flinch. Wave after wave came, but they crumbled as soon as they were within range. Tempest was a master of her trade, a goddess to come life, and nothing could stop her. Not until an eerie red glow shone through the room.

The roof blasted open, and the Autarch descended from the sky, crackling with preternatural energy. The attack was swift and brutal. Scott struggled to keep up, yelling in desperation as walls collapsed around them, but when the dust settled, he watched the monster descend on one of his closest friends. A monster wearing his face.

Kira pulled herself across the ground, defiant to the last as she struggled to put distance between this. “You don’t have to do this, Scott,” she hissed, eyes filled with bright with pain. Her legs were bent at an unnatural angle. Scott couldn’t look at them for too long, not without tears prickling his eyes. “You can still stop.”

“I’m sorry, Kira. It’s for the greater good.” There was a peculiar tremble in his voice, so alien after everything Scott had heard. It took him a moment to realize that it was remorse. “I wouldn’t have to do this if you’d just listened. I’m creating a safer world… There might still be a place for you.”

“Is that what you told Malia?” Kira was defiant to the last, her head held high, energy crackling between her fingers tips. Through the broken roof, Scott could see the sky. Choked with storm clouds, it was as if he was looking into an endless abyss.

The Autarch took a step forward. Tempest made the skies roar with power.

Blood stained the video, and Stiles screamed. It sounded like he was right beside Scott, only to be drowned out by the roar of the ship’s thrusters, and Scott cried out with him. He could do nothing as Kira fell, rushing to her side only to find his hands moved through her too. Empty brown eyes stared beyond him, beyond anything on her world. There was a flash of light, and then the jumper disappeared from their timeline.

It was over.  

Scott dropped the device like he’d been burned, stomach roiling. It took all of his strength not to heave his guts on the floor. That was the world Stiles had been running from and the monster that had created him. No wonder he wanted to kill Scott to keep him from becoming that.

But the Autarch’s words hit too closely, drawing blood and leaving Scott winded. All that rage for the greater good. He felt it pulsing through him, righteous and justified. A world where no one would ever lose anyone they loved ever again. He looked at his hands, still glowing red like he’d already gotten them bloody.  _I’m creating a safer world…_

There was no escape.

With a soft groan, Scott sat at the edge of his bed, surrounded by what was left of his best friend. If he stopped, then how could he live with himself for turning his back on the people who needed his help if he could have done something to save them? If he didn’t, how could he save the world without destroying it? Stiles had thought he’d saved him, but as the energy crackled around his fingertips, Scott wasn’t sure.

Indecision paralyzed him and he curled on top of his covers, focusing on the each shaky breath he forced into his lungs. All he’d ever wanted to do was help, even back what felt like a thousand years ago before Peter had ruined him when he spent his free days helping the local veterinarian take care of the animals in the local clinic. He’d never asked for this power or even wanted it, but he’d done his best to try and find something good from one of the worst parts of his life. It had all been for everyone else, but how could he save them now if there was even a chance he could turn into  _that_?

He lay there for a long time, face buried in Stiles’s pillow where the scent of his shampoo had already faded away into nothing. They could still win if he wasn’t afraid to do what needed to be done, but at least this time, he’d make sure he didn’t make the same mistake. There would be time enough to say goodbye.

Scott gathered his courage, feeling lighter than he had in weeks as he searched through the halls for his friends. Hope gave him strength and he found himself smiling.

“Kira? Can we talk?”

“Hey, Scott.” Kira’s smile was small, wary but genuine, slowly putting down the documents she was looking over. They were the only ones in the common room at the moment. That wouldn’t have been a problem before, but Scott caught her looking around, just once. “What’s up?”

His heart sank to his feet, but he couldn’t find it in him to blame her. For a second, a ghost of the woman he’d seen fighting for her world’s last chance of survival danced across her face, and his breath caught in his throat.

“I wanted to apologize.” He approached slowly, but his pulse was racing. He’d tried to put his thoughts in order, as if he could make everything right by setting up the prettiest speech. Even if there had been a chance, the words jumbled now, on the tip of his tongue. “For the way I’ve been acting. It’s been tough, really tough. Without him.”

Her hand closed over his wrist, and Scott shuddered. It was all Kira needed to pull him in, to wrap her arms around him. He fell into her and held on like she was a lifeline. Seeing her like this, alive and well, so brave and so compassionate, it almost hurt, but it was a good hurt. “Scott… It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not okay at all.” He almost laughed, pressing his face into her shoulder. It was easier this way. He wasn’t sure he could say what he needed to if he had to look her in the eye. “I was out of line. By a lot, but you were always there for me. I can always trust you to pull me back. I wanna thank you for that too.

And I think… Until this is all sorted, I think I should take a break from the team. We talked about It, once?”

“Scott, you don’t need to do this.” Concern broke out across her features, and Kira pulled away, her warm brown eyes so impossibly soft. Scott wished he could take back all the times he’d hurt her. He was hurting her, still. He could read the disapproval on her face.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he cut her off, before she could say anything else. “I think I need a break. I don’t wanna be out in the field right now. I don’t think I should be. I can’t - a good leader does what’s best for the team, and I can’t lead right now… But I think you can.”

She looked surprised, but Scott didn’t let her deny it. “I trust you with them until I can get my head on straight. The team needs a leader, Kira. When I get my head on straight again, I’ll be back. Okay?”

“Are you sure?” Kira squeezed her arms tightly around her friend. “You’re not just leaving?”

“Never. I’ll always be here to help if you need me.” 

She seemed to accept his answer with a sigh of relief. Scott had been standing so close to the edge, but this was a step towards healing. Maybe recovery would be slow and he’d need time to learn how to grieve, but it was progress. They weren’t going to lose each other.

* * *

 

Kira had her doubts at first, but Scott made the transition easy. Scott put his faith in his team, helping from the control room as they took for criminals with ease. She asked Mason to stay with him, but over time, Mason stopped hovering. A billionaire genius had far too much to distract himself with.

Even with Rocket Boy on the bench, they worked well together. She and Malia understood each other best and Lydia was still finding her footing as Sage, but they relied on each other’s strength and trusted each other. She was proud of them, they’d built this family from the ground up, and together, they were greater than the sum of their parts. Scott would meet them after every meeting at the monitors, before the mission high could die down and every recount came with high fives and creative cursing.

Then one day, Scott didn’t.

Ms. Monster charged in with a howl, a peculiar mixture of wolf and eagle that didn’t last very long. She landed on her butt and shook off the shift, brown hair rising like a halo around her smiling face. “Scott, did you see what we did? Crimson Scorpion didn’t stand a chance! Scott! Scott…?”

Sage followed in at a more subdued pace, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. There was an oil stain down her sleeve, but she looked ridiculously pleased with herself, and Tempest followed not long afterwards, quite literally floating on air.

“Do you sense him anywhere?” Malia cast an uncertain glance at Sage, who was undoing her mask and letting her long strawberry blond hair curl down her shoulders. Lydia shrugged uncertainly, but Kira was already moving, concern etched across her features.

She called his name through the building, speeding through the corridors, but found neither hide nor hair of him. Then Malia’s voice whispered through her communicator, tentative in a way Kira hated to hear.

“Kira… I found his com.”

The panicked look on Mason’s face startled her and she took of running, down through the halls of their headquarters to the storage areas where Mason kept all of his half-finished experiments and captured tech. She didn’t stop until she saw Scott, pulling up short with a surprised gasp.

He looked like he was asleep inside the cryostasis pod they’d rescued Lydia from almost a year ago. The flickering lights on its panel indicated Scott’s vital signs were strong, but he didn’t wake up even when Malia banged on the glass.

“Get him out of there!”

Mason hesitated, hands hovering over the panel as he looked back miserably at his friends. “It’s still dangerous. We lost people trying to get them out of this before, Peter’s tech is unstable. I don’t know…I mean, I need to do more research before we can just shut it down.”

“I don’t care, we need to get him out of there now.” Malia hissed impatiently, but Kira calmed her with a soft word and pulled off a slip of paper that had been stuck to the glass.

_I know that you’re probably angry and I’m sorry. I never meant to lie to any of you. It seems a little extreme, but I saw what was happening to me and I couldn’t take the chance. We’ve worked so hard to protect the future and being doing what’s right means doing whatever it takes to save people, even from me._

_You’re more than my friends. You’re my family and I love you. I never could have gotten so far without you. You taught me what it means to be a hero. Before meeting you, I never really thought about what that meant. It’s more than flashy costumes and fighting bad guys. It’s even more than saving people, even if I used to think that was the most important thing._

_Being a hero means making sacrifices, and making the hard choices for the good of others. You taught me that, and I love you all. I’m sorry I never really said it out loud._

_I know you’re going to be amazing, you’re a team and I have faith that you’re going to do great things. I’m not gone forever, I’m always going to be right here where you can wake me up if you need me._

_I’m sorry._

Lydia stole the note from Kira’s unmoving hands, and on her other side, Malia snarled through a mouth filled with inhuman fangs.

“This isn’t right,” Lydia snapped. ”There has to be a way we can - this isn’t _right.”_

But Kira placed a warm hand on her shoulder, before fixing Mason with a steady stare. It gave the boy genius some purpose. He stopped looking as lost as he had. “Mason, I want you to start finding out how to get this open.”

“And the rest of us?” Lydia demanded, no longer content to stay still, but even she quelled under Kira’s solemn glance.

“We do what we need to.” Kira said softly. They had to keep going. In the beginning, none of them expected this to be anything but temporary, but the months bled into years and years into decades, and the cryostasis pod remained unopened. The greatest minds the world had ever seen banded together, but damaged, ancient tech was volatile at best. It stopped being just the Maze Master on call. 

Their numbers grew. Their influence spread. What they couldn’t save, they did their best to protect, and Rocket Boy disappeared from the world. The first leader of The Pack, a legend in his own right. Whenever the all-knowing Sage, commanding Ms. Monster, or divine Tempest spoke of him, they cheered his name and sang his praises, but one far outmatched the rest.

Rocket Boy defeated the Autarch.

The world knew peace.


	15. Epilogue

The technology was too unstable to risk waking Scott, so he slept in ice, watched by those he’d given up everything to protect. He lived on in memory, a legend who saved the world by sacrificing himself. The old heroes stepped back to pave the way for new ones, old responsibilities were passed onto the younger generation, the world changing hands over and over.

Life continued as it always had, until one day.

Gloved hands scraped the condensation from the glass, peering into the tube to try and see inside. “I think this is it. I think we’re ready.” The man said, gesturing for his son to get out of the way of the crowd of reporters and historians. This was a major find, the culmination of years of research that had started at the not-so-secret location of what had to be the old Pack base. The history in their walls was incredible, but to finally succeed at such a feat - it was beyond anything he could imagine.

“Pull the switch.”

His son pressed in closer, ignoring the order and elbowing a reporter out of the way to get a better look. Air hissed as the outdated technology ground to life, rusting gears sliding the glass open. Alarms beeped urgently as the occupant’s life signs fluctuated wildly.

Everything was too bright, Scott couldn’t open his eyes more than a crack without the light searing straight through his brain. His body felt stiff and slow and everything was so cold. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t quite get his mouth to cooperate or even understand the mumbled roar of voices talking over each other in excitement.

_He’s alive!_

_Oh my god, it’s really Rocket Boy. We did it_.

_Tempest radioed in from Goa!_

One shadowy shape leaned in. As the blur of noise reached a fever pitch, climbing higher and higher until it threatened to overwhelm him completely, a familiar voice the only thing that reached through Scott’s haze.

“You’re shorter than I expected.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find Dans's awesome fics [here](http://nevertrustastilesthing.tumblr.com/)
> 
> You can read Rune's stuff [Here](http://fightingforthepack.tumblr.com/) and find her on tumblr at [ Runicscribbles](http://runicscribbles.tumblr.com)


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